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Our Blog-FriendsIt should come as no surprise to you that I would blog on ‘greenness.’ It’s my main thing. So, while I won’t subject you to a barrage of enviro-news, I did think this particular headline was worth discussing.
Last fall, the Chatham County Commission passed a resolution to become the ‘Greenest County in Georgia.’ Since then they’ve designated the Chatham Environmental Forum, composed of a diverse member base from the business, industry, environmental and government sectors, to facilitate discussion on this grandiose endeavor. Admittedly, we have a long way to go to realize such a designation. As mentioned in a recent Savannah Morning News article, according to U.S. Census data Chatham County has “no curbside recycling, only average public transportation and carpool use and draws far less than 1 percent of its household energy use from renewable sources such as wind, solar, biomass or hydroelectric.”
That said we seem to have an edge on other Georgia counties thanks to our stream buffers, advancement of LEED certified buildings among developers, a legacy of reduced water consumption and a strong sense of community pride.
I would argue that we boast another key piece of the puzzle: creative incentive. Creative guru Richard Florida spoke at the Trustee’s last year about “The Rise of the Creative Class,” and “The Flight of the Creative Class.” Here’s something he pointed out: The Creative Class loves quality of life.
Now, let’s talk about this. We know that creative businesses favor several key conditions preemptive to relocation, including but not limited to low(er) cost of living, large creative talent pool, city design/planning/aesthetics and infrastructure (like miles of fiber optic cable). But Florida adds that quality of life is as important to attract the Creative Class as all the economic pluses. The new generation, full of creative juices, has lifestyle imperatives about where they will live: clean air and water, efficient transportation, recreational opportunities and ample green space. People, more and more, want to interact with their environment and community. The greener the city, the more livable it is. And the more attractive to the Creative Class.
Kudos to the Chatham County Commission and the Chatham Environmental Forum for working to secure Savannah’s place as a desirable community and thriving economy. And, furthermore, to situate Chatham County as a model for other counties and communities throughout the state.
Here you thought it was just tree-hugger bull****.
Kudos for Chatham for stepping up. The City of Savannah has taken some proactive steps, now its time for the County to surpass them. The programs that are implemented at the local level obviously make good environemntal sense - but they also benefit the communities in other ways. Typically these programs ramp up the efficiency of operations, saving the County money. That’s our taxpayer dollars not being wasted. They also improve health - less emissions means less coal burned - which just happens to be one of the leading causes of asthma. It also improves our quality of life - how much better off are you not sitting in traffic, but instead spending that time at home with your family? It all makes sense, and while its a shame its taken us so long to start doing what some other cities and counties have been doing for years, its better late than never!
Bloggers, meet Tommy Linstroth. He’s a Savannah local and the sustainability coordinator for a sustainable Savannah-based business, Melaver, Inc. Tommy just published his first book entitled “Local Action: the New Paradigm in Climate Change Policy.” As he points out in his comment, and his book clearly elaborates, the very global issue of climate change can, and should, be tackled at the local level. Why wait for slow and sometimes less effective federal-level legislation? We know best what we need and can implement here in our communities.
If you’re interested in learning more about what we can be doing here on the Creative Coast, consider picking up a copy of “Local Action,” available online through Amazon.com or Upne.com.
Amen. Kudos are in order indeed. It’s great Chatham County has the desire (and the cajones) to take on such an endeavor. Promising for sure.
Question: What exactly does “the greenest county in GA” mean? I assume, like any other industry, there are standard metrics of success? (I guess that’s up to the CEF?)
A friend just told me about this when we met by chance at the Bean this morning. Once again, I am pleasantly surprised. A local newspaper editor said to me today that he had been worried that the green enthusiasm in Savannah recently was just another passing fad, but he is convinced that it is a real sea change. To those of us who have been moving in green circles, the movement is palpable. I heard (and Summer can confirm) that there were 260 folks at GreenDrinks on Tuesday. I would have worried that this was just some kind of lip-service, but then I looked at the names of the committee members, so I am sure this is the real deal.
I just returned from an ICLEI summit for European cities, hearing about the progress they are making on reducing carbon footprint. Graz, Austria runs its entire transit system on biodeisel, much of which is from recycled cooking oil. Lille, France is looking at doing something similar by harvesting the methane from their landfill (actually a two-fer, since methane is a much more virulent greenhouse gas, and would otherwise be released to atmosphere). The main thing I learned is that we have to start measuring everything we do in more than just dollars. Gas prices will continue to motivate people, but few of us know how many kilowatt hours, gallons of feul and water, or tons carbon dioxide we consume or produce. Without this baseline, we are just talking green, not actually making progress.
Chatham County needs to show leadership by identifying how we can recycle, reduce impacts on natural ecology, and start to walk, bicycle and take the bus to work !
Pat,
That’s amazing…sounds like we’ve got some catching up to do although it seems we’re heading in the right direction.
On the measuring front…is that something the Chatham Environmental Forum is currently tackling? If so, what kind of metrics make up that baseline? (Forgive me for the request for specifics…I’m a numbers nerd.)
Sounds like you learned some cool stuff at ICLEI summit…I’m sure it will be interesting (and fun) challenge to try and apply that knowledge locally.
At any rate, kudos indeed…glad to hear you and the rest of the County Commission are making this a priority!
Pat,
Just saw where ICLEI is having a North American Local Action Summit next month in Albuquerque. I’d love to see more local government officials - like yourself - be able to participate in these educational and motivational summits. Always great to hear the success of others and get fired up about acheiving an important goal.
More information can be found at http://www.icleiactionsummit.org.
Not one person has said anything about waste reduction.
This recycling effort by the city and the county means that jobs would be created so that people will be paid to go through all of your garbage to find and clean out mayonnaise jars and yogurt containers for your pleasure.
Yes, the county commission gave the MPC $50,000 to create a “green” library. Oh, this $50,000 is for the first 6 months only. Talk about saving money? How about using a computer hooked up to google instead?
I think it is interesting that communities that have been recycling for years have decided against it because of the costs. I find it is interesting that they burn the garbage instead and generate electricity.
Talk about the economy of numbers? Have the county work with the city to lower the costs of recycling? How about the economy of 8 million people who decided burning was a better solution than recycling? Huh? What do you think?
I am all for waste reduction and recycling what you will. What waste you create you are responsible for. Collect your recyclable goods and take them to the recyclers. I am not for the local government paying someone to pick through my garbage and cleaning out my mayonnaise or yogurt containers.
Knowledge based is a good catch phrase. I hope you people catch on to this and realize that paying someone to pick through your garbage for you does nothing to promote a knowledge based community. If you increased your knowledge on the facts then you would agree that creating jobs for people to pick through your garbage is foolish.
James Dewberry
James
You make some interesting points. I have a pretty strong libertarian streak, so I definitely understand the mindset that it’s up to each of us to dispose of our own waste responsibly. Of course, the problem with that is that most people will not and this ends up being a collective burden. The reason for making recycling easy (and in some places, mandatory) is that participation rates are high. However, this still all begs the questions as to whether recycling (at least in its current configuration) is the best way to handle the “mess” we humans create.
I haven’t looked into the pros and cons of incineration. Creation of power is definitely a con, but are there smog issues and release of toxins into the air. If there was something like no emissions incineration, that might be a good alternative.
I also totally agree that waste reduction is the key, but that’s a tough one unless it flows from the production end of the process. Most people are going to buy stuff as its packaged. Admittedly, I am sometimes guilty of buying stuff in the “wrong” packaging because it was the product I wanted (most recently organic ketchup in a non-recyclable plastic bottle and high-omega-3 eggs in—ugh—styrofoam—they were the healthiest eggs for the price and I didn’t even notice the styrofoam until today).
But, there is even an issue with the supposedly “right” materials. I learned recently that much of the plastic and paper that we recycle might be more appropriately called downcycled. Basically,recycling paper and plastic requires the use of toxic chemicals. Each round of recycling requires more such chemicals and still results in an inferior product with each successive cycle. Not only do these chemicals get into our systems from the packaging and the environment from the production, but their use is no doubt a boon to the companies who make them, companies which clearly have no incentive to reduce waste in the long run. This is clearly a complex matter and reciting mantras about recycling is an oversimplification that leaves many loose ends to tie up. I have been meaning to get hold of a book called Cradle to Cradle that addresses some of these issues.
Thank you for the reply.
These are very complex issues that demand attention and thoughtful consideration.
Savannah uses chemicals to breakdown the sewage sludge left over from the water “purification” process before being dumped in the Savannah River. You know what? Poo burns real hot and needs no chemical that will end up in the river.
How much does a ton of coal cost that is burned to generate electricity? How much does a ton of garbage cost to burn in an incinerator?
Pat Shay, where is the closest recycler for plastics? Bottles? Paper? Who will pay for the costs to ship the waste? Anyone?
The community I referred to was Tokyo. 12 of the 23 wards of Tokyo have ended recycling and burn instead. You know Tokyo Japan? The Kyoto protocol? Japan? Would anyone suggest they don’t know what they are doing? Economy of numbers to support this recycling talk? “Over eight million people live within Tokyo’s 23 wards. During the daytime, the population swells by over 2.5 million as workers and students commute from adjacent areas” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo
Go figure.
Not one of these politicians has said a word about waste reduction. None have approached the restaurants to talk about packaging. None have made any statements against the use of styrofoam containers. Recycle some styrofoam for me “leaders”.
This same website carried a video of Mayor Otis and cheerleader Miller talking about efforts to clean up the environment and the Savannah River. They talked about catching fish but didn’t say a word about eating the 5 headed monsters. They were talking to the “greenest” community in Europe as I remember. What a laugh. Send them photos of picking picking through your garbage and cleaning out your discarded ketchup bottles and toothpaste tubes.
Instead of overspending $60 million on the new jail the fools should build incinerators and require the franchise utility, Ga. Power, to buy the power that is generated to offset the utility service paid by the government and or provide the utility power lines to sell the power to any other consumer of the power.
Instead of building yet another public park the city they better figure out what they are going to do about the discharges the city makes into the Savannah River.
This pie in the sky idea that curbside recycling will do anything to improve our environment is foolish. Think of the fuel it will take to ship all of the sifted through garbage to someone who can or will handle the waste. So I guess we will have to buy some carbon credits to ship the waste? Who will pay? What else could we spend the money on? Roads?
I’d rather spend my tax dollars on “knowledge based” incinerators over paying my tax dollars on “stupid based” jobs sifting through our garbage, cleaning out mayonnaise and yogurt containers.
I’d rather burn my garbage than pay to have someone pick through it.
I guess they are buying carbon credits to offset the “free” ferry boat rides back and forth across the Savannah River. Let me hear Pat Shay talk about the 2800 gallons of fuel consumed each month for those free rides. I guess Pat Shay is paying for the carbon offset.
Lots of smooth talkers. How sweet.
Incineration will be discontinued in Savannah anyway. Hopefully they will implement recycling. Otherwise, it will be straight to the landfill - which will be filling up quite quickly with non-incinerated waste.
Here are some links for those interested. The video link at the bottom is a good primer.
My entire point is priorities. We need to improve our pedestrian infrastructure, fix the roads and public transportation system and build as many as 2 incinerators. What would you put first? Some ridiculous recycling effort? Who has the time or the money? The city of Savannah has already spent more than $1 million of your tax dollars. How much more would you advocate them wasting?
Here are the links…..
Here is a good article
http://mises.org/story/2855
and this one
http://www.quaker.org/clq/2003/TQE091-EN-Recycling.html
and another
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-202.html
And here is a very interesting, informative, and funny video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHAuU5JjRyQ
I’m guessing James thinks it is “just tree-hugger bull****.”
Todd, I am a huge fan of Bill McDonough and Cradle to Cradle. One of the first books I “had” to read in grad school. Amazing concepts that completely make you rethink the way we a) make things and b) “recycle.”
Thanks to all of you for a great discussion highlighting the complexities of the issue and proving the great need for continued conversations among Chatham citizens.
One comment in regards to the jobs created by recycling. There are countless industries based right here in Georgia that could benefit greatly from a locally-generated stream of recycled material. I can name EcoLog and CollectiveGood. Another major industry that needs recycled material to make products here in Georgia but can’t find enough of it (so they have to import from NJ) is Weyerhaeuser. If we can begin to close the loops then it will be alot less fuel to get recycled material to the industries that need them. It will also, likely, become more profitable.
An internal memo from Weyerhaeuser demonstrating their interest in (in response to an obvious demand for) products containing recycled content (below). Where there’s a will there’s a way.
AF&PA (the American Forest & Paper Association) reports that last year an all-time high of 56% of paper consumed in the U.S. was recovered for recycling, achieving a significant industry goal five years ahead of schedule. In announcing the achievement during the industry’s 131st Annual Paper Week in New York earlier this week, AF&PA also set a new goal of 60% recovery by 2012. The 54.3 million tons of paper recovered in 2007 add up to more than 360 lb for every man, woman, and child in the U.S. Each percentage point is the equivalent of approximately one million additional tons of recovered paper, enough to fill more than 14,000 railroad cars. The U.S. EPA noted that, in 2007, the U.S. recycled more than 25 million tons more paper than was recycled in 1990. This increase in paper recycling reduced emissions by more than 97 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, comparable to the annual emissions of nearly 18 million cars.
I was wondering how much recycling paper reduced emissions. So good to know. I do still remain concerned about the downcycling issue, though. Wood-pulp paper eventually ends up in a landfill after the fibers have been too weakened from processing for another cycle. I wonder how hemp-based paper might fit into this picture. The fiber is much, much stronger than wood-pulp paper and apparently requires much less processing to make. I bet it could go through many more downcycles than conventional paper. The first issue that jumps into my mind is that it has to be produced before it can be re-produced, so does the cost of the initial production of this type of paper negate it’s potential long term benefits? This is just off the cuff—maybe in my spare time (LOL), I’ll dig into this matter some more.
P.S. Summer, do you have a copy of Cradle to Cradle you would consider lending to a neighbor? :-)
I am not at all down on tree hugging. I have lived here all of my life and appreciate our unique natural beauty. I’ve studied botany, plant physiology, ecology and a host of other subjects in college to earn my biology degree so you are quite wrong in your assessment.
I am all for you recycling everything that you think is prudent but to spend our tax dollars on a curbside recycling program to me makes no sense at all. I believe it is a matter of priorities. We have a sidewalk problem. We have a pedestrian safety problem. We have a public transportation problem and the list goes on and on.
As I said, we have already spent more than $1 million dollars on this effort in Savannah and it will never break even. What is worse, there has been no effort at all to educate the public about waste reduction. I have heard of no efforts by any local group to lobby the producers of these bottled drinks to change to an environmentally friendly package instead of the current plastic bottles.
If you all are so green what efforts have you done to close the paper plant? Anything? Huh? Aren’t paper plants some of the biggest environmental evil doers there are to be found? Huh? Have you been out there protesting? Huh? At the paper mill? Huh?
How many Creative Coast Recycle bins are there in Savannah? Huh? Any SEDA recycle bins to be found around town? Huh? Why not? Cost a lot of money? Somebody over there at SEDA worried about who will go around and collect all of the collected goods and where you will take them? Huh?
Please, take good care of the items you buy and later find little value in and toss in the garbage. Take it upon yourself to collect the goods and deliver them yourself to any of the recycle bins already available. In fact, there are a number of local businesses that will come to your door and remove the goods for you and all at a very reasonable rate.
I don’t have to remind you about the costs of transporting anything in a car or a truck so just imagine more trucks on the road stopping at everyone’s house to look in their recycle bin to find there is nothing in there at all. Imagine the waste of time, effort and resources. After gathering the goods our knowledge based economy is going to find someone to pick through everything to salvage maybe 40% of that which is collected to be reclaimed?
Certainly if we had all of the time and all of the money on hand to make this work then things would be just great. If we didn’t have such a hard time reclaiming some of the items like plastics etc… then the job would be much easier.
This might be a great opportunity for SEDA to market Savannah to a recycling company and have them process everything here. How about that? Huh? Have you all solicited many reclaimers this week? This month? This year? Huh? Certainly if we had such an industry right here the burden would be much less. Well, maybe.
SEDA is a smart bunch with a lot of money right? If this was a feasible investment with a high enough return wouldn’t SEDA have fronted the money for someone a long time ago to ensure we had such an industry to deal with our “problems” already? Huh?
I think this is a good discussion. Let’s talk about it more.
A man has a long meeting with his doctor. The doctor says, I’m sorry, I have some bad news for you. You have cancer. What’s worse is that we are not going to treat it, we are going to put all our efforts into stopping the cause of cancer.
Has this conversation ever really happened? Of course it hasn’t. Just because we are working on finding out what causes cancer and preventing it in the first place does not mean that we still do not treat the disease and its symptoms. It is naive to think that this should be the case for recycling or any other issue. Sure, we need to reduce the amount of trash we produce and the amount of packaging that goes into products, but does that mean we should be content with just tossing or burning the waste in the process until we come up with the ultimate solution? That is ridiculous! I’ve got a great, cheap alternative to trash reduction – we could take it all out into the ocean and dump it in there for free. Gee, we don’t seem to be doing that? Obviously this is not simply a cost driven issue, or you’d see a huge heap of trash out there bobbing in the Atlantic. Is recycling going to start slow and cost some money? Sure, a whole dollar a month for residents…hope we don’t put anyone in the poor house! And yes, some communities have struggled with making recycling work profitably – but why does that have to be our model? Why not look at San Francisco, Portland or Seattle, with trash diversion rates of 75%? Think that isn’t making a difference? San Francisco’s mayor, as reference in the NYT a week ago, has just placed the stake in the ground to reduce that number even further. The work out there has folks from all over the world coming to examine the model of accepting so many forms of materials and making it work.
Let’s look at incineration. Outside of who knows what emissions come from incineration (and who doesn’t love a little dioxin), I’m not necessarily against it. After all it reduces landfill space 80%, which is a good thing and power generation is beneficial as a byproduct. But why would we simply throw all materials in there to burn? Why would you not extract materials with value first? Last time I checked aluminum was $1500 a ton, yet we’d be content to burn it? Sure some items break down after numerous recycling efforts, paper breaks down, plastic can only go around so many times before fibers disintegrate – but why not get as much out as you can before you’d burn it? That’s ridiculous as well. The State of Georgia did a study on the value of the materials we were throwing out and it runs well into the millions. If you want to burn money, use your own wallet. All the plastic we have can go to north Georgia and be turned into carpet. Instead they ship in recyclables form California. There are 17 paper plants in Georgia that are looking for recycled paper and not getting enough of it. And one of the largest aluminum recycling facilities in the Southeast is in Georgia, owned by Alcoa. So all these materials we’d not be recycling are also negatively impacting the economy of the state and its residents. And they don’t have to travel more than 250 miles.
The City of Savannah has moved in the right direction and exhibited some leadership by creating this recycling program. Someone’s got to get an initiative going, and if it costs some upfront cash, that’s the price of leadership. And they city is getting most of that money from the state anyway, so its not my tax dollars. You want participation, you go with curbside. If you’re going to force people to take it themselves, do the same with trash and see what happens and think of all the cash you could save by not having to pay the 23 bucks a month! Car and truck costs and emissions – those wouldn’t go down by having one central service take collections instead of thousands of households each getting in their own car to get rid of materials? Think of it as mass transit for trash if you will.
Let’s not be so myopic and pessimistic and look at the actual impact we can have and what types of programs we could be incorporating. Recycling is a small component to developing an overall plan for increasing the greenness, health and quality of life of our vibrant community.
For those whoe are interested - a discourse on the lifecycle of a new aluminum can…
In the beginning there was just bauxite (aluminum ore) probably from either the Australian outback or Jamaica. It is often found in extremely weathered rocks. Before mining, at least the top six inches of top-soil must be removed from the site. Because bauxite is found near the surface of the ground (usually less than 100 feet) it is often mined by simple opencast methods. Bauxite mining destroys more surface area than mining any other ore. From bauxite, alumina (Al2O3) is still most commonly extracted using a method that was developed back in 1888.
The amount of alumina produced is approximately half the weight of the original bauxite. A byproduct of caustic soda is captured for reuse and another toxic byproduct known as “red mud” is usually put into a nearby pond where some of it inevitably leaks into ground water. Next, the alumina is shipped across the world for further processing using tons of energy and polluting the oceans.
Then the alumina is smelted. Smelting is very energy intensive: making a single soda can of smelted aluminum is equivalent to a burning a quarter-can of gasoline. In the smelting process the alumina is dissolved in huge pots filled with cryolite (sodium aluminum fluoride) while carbon electrodes are added to the pot to send a giant 100,000 amps electricity. In the process Carbon Dioxide is produced along with perflourocarbons (PFCs).
PFCs, which are greenhouse gases, trap heat like none other. PFCs are one of the most harmful greenhouse gases to exist. The global warming potential (GWP) for perflourocarbons is 6,500-~ 9,200, compared to Carbon Dioxide with a GWP of 1. GWP is the ability of a greenhouse gas to trap heat in the atmosphere relative to an equal amount of carbon dioxide. Smelting is therefore one of the most destructive processes to the climate.
The next step in the process is shipping/trucking the aluminum slabs to a factory where the aluminum is flattened and then shipped to the next mill. At this mill the aluminum is shaped into a can and printed with design. The can is then baked twice and then sent to the next factory. The can itself cost more than the soda which will fill it.
Think having someone pull that Coke can out instead of burning it isn’t going to help?
You make a great point about aluminum. It is for this reason I avoid buying anything in form of aluminum drinking vessels. Folks who buy aluminum need to be responsible for the aluminum.
A better approach is at the source. Petition the bottlers to have them change their packaging. Paper something drinking cartons just like milk comes packaged in would be a better package in removing the metals from the waste stream. Certainly paper in my mind is favored over plastic as well.
I thought about seda and this thread this weekend as I walked past all of the over flowing garbage cans in downtown Savannah. I didn’t see any of the seda reps out there discouraging people from creating such wastes. Where is the chamber of commerce in all of this?
I’d like to hear folks talk about public transportation.
Would a local system that was better managed and operated do a lot to keep cars and trucks off of the road?
I think so.
I want to see us have very efficient, convenient and dependable transit system. We have been paying for just that for decades but we have what we have. Can we start a thread on public transit or just exchange ideas here?
Thanks,
James
Tommy
Your cancer analogy is dead on. While I do think the main issue is on the production side, that does not mean we ignore the symptoms while trying to treat the cause. This reminds me of an endless argument we used to have in my former career of holistic health. There was a group of folks who could see no good in putting any attention on what we referred to as the branch of the condition as opposed to the root (the branch being what people experienced while the root being things like poor diet, lack of exercise, etc.). But how this played out in real life is that people were left to suffer while we tried to fix the causes.
Sadly, identifying the causes after the fact only helps the next person down the line. Here and now you must relieve the immediate suffering. It’s a band-aid, but band-aids save lives. The thing we have to remember, though (and I know you know this), is that if we do not address root causes, no amount of band-aids will ever suffice. We need to make sure we do not lose sight of the forest for the trees. Let’s work hard to mitigate the effects of our current circumstances, but work equally hard or even doubly hard to correct the causes. Arguably, as is so common in politics, too much attention has been placed on mitigating effects and not nearly enough on rectifying causes (because rectifying causes drives right to the heart of those vested interests who stand to have their industries turned upside down if the fundamental issues were ever attacked head on).
Todd
Not only are we negatively impacting the economy by forcing Georgia industries looking for recycled materials to find them out-of-state, but we are extremely undervaluing trash disposal. You cannot talk about the economic arguments of recycling (or not recycling) without talking about the ways we undervalue our waste disposal and landfills. In 2005, while working in Atlanta for Georgia Conservation Voters (www.gavoters.com), I wrote and published the 2006 Greening the Budget, with 10 policy recommendations to protect the environment and public health in Georgia. One of the recommendations was on tipping and host fees for waste disposal.
Here’s an excerpt:
“In 2003, Georgia averaged $33.26 per ton in total waste disposal fees – only $1.50 of which consists of fees that are allocated to local governments and the state treasury. Comparatively, the Northeast boasts regional averages of $55 per ton of waste. Partially due to these low tipping fees, Georgia ranks tenth out of all fifty states for the most active municipal landfills. By undervaluing waste disposal services,Georgia creates an incentive for other states to dispose of their waste in Georgia’s communities; 16% of the waste disposed in Georgia’s landfills currently comes from out-of-state waste. These numbers will continue to grow unless changes are made to equalize Georgia’s disposal fee rates with those of other states. Soon, Georgia will be forced to deal with limited landfill capacity which will require the addition of new waste disposal sites. Every community will be saddled with this burden; communities across the state will be filled with Northeastern states’ trash. Georgia is compromising its future by selling dwindling landfill capacity at bargain prices.”
It is estimated that nearly 40% of ‘garbage’ that Georgians throw away contains commonly recyclable material. Were we to raise the state host fee for waste disposal merely $.50 per ton we could generate revenue to be apportioned for recycling programs. Check out the entire article, beginning on page 20, at: http://www.gavoters.com/downloads/2006_GreeningTheBudget.pdf.
James
I don’t know what the rules are here for starting a thread, but you are certainly welcome to start one on my Web site at http://greenspacesavannah.org
Todd