2008 Woodie Awards
Sustainability requires accountability
Grits and Greens
Christopher Vincent
Issue date: 10/31/07 Section: Opinion
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Oct. 16 was World Food Day. It's a day some people, mostly community activists, set aside to consider the 400 million starving children currently struggling to survive on the planet.
This year the focus was on the Word of the Year 2007: global warming. The event included a teleconference and discussion about how the Earth's food supply could be impacted by climate change.
Mostly leaving aside the fact that we know next-to-nothing about how climate change will affect any particular part of the world, we dove more confidently into the issue of local sustainability, which mostly impacts our own ability to get safe food in cases of crisis.
Because there were a few community leaders present - including Fayetteville's rookie sustainability director John Coleman and scientists such as meteorologist Steve Boss and physicist and columnist Art Hobson - I decided to pose the problem of recycling for apartment dwellers, who make up 45 percent of the Fayetteville population.
Coleman was well aware of the challenges posed by such an endeavor, which would require nerves of steel and a serious wad of cash. The challenges include accountability for participation, the difficulty with not getting pure enough materials, and issues of getting apartment managers, owners and residents to participate. Fayetteville's recycling program is not profitable as it is, in spite of selling every scrap of collected material. The problem, Coleman clarified, is that the material is not "pure" enough. The material Fayetteville acquires is not close enough to "pure class" - pure paper, pure plastic or pure metals. This problem forces the city to sell the shards and wads at a lower price.
To put it simply, because residents do not wash out their bottles or take the metal lids off glass jars, the recycling material is worthless. However, when people don't cooperate, how do you figure out who they are? One rancid milk container spoils the whole load.
Another challenge is to get apartment residents to cooperate enough to make possible the basic six-material recycling program that is practiced in other residences. Even more difficult might be getting apartment managers to cooperate with such a program. If I were a manager, I don't know how excited I would be at the prospect of filling up my tight space with six new containers and having to make room for a truck to unload them once a week.
This year the focus was on the Word of the Year 2007: global warming. The event included a teleconference and discussion about how the Earth's food supply could be impacted by climate change.
Mostly leaving aside the fact that we know next-to-nothing about how climate change will affect any particular part of the world, we dove more confidently into the issue of local sustainability, which mostly impacts our own ability to get safe food in cases of crisis.
Because there were a few community leaders present - including Fayetteville's rookie sustainability director John Coleman and scientists such as meteorologist Steve Boss and physicist and columnist Art Hobson - I decided to pose the problem of recycling for apartment dwellers, who make up 45 percent of the Fayetteville population.
Coleman was well aware of the challenges posed by such an endeavor, which would require nerves of steel and a serious wad of cash. The challenges include accountability for participation, the difficulty with not getting pure enough materials, and issues of getting apartment managers, owners and residents to participate. Fayetteville's recycling program is not profitable as it is, in spite of selling every scrap of collected material. The problem, Coleman clarified, is that the material is not "pure" enough. The material Fayetteville acquires is not close enough to "pure class" - pure paper, pure plastic or pure metals. This problem forces the city to sell the shards and wads at a lower price.
To put it simply, because residents do not wash out their bottles or take the metal lids off glass jars, the recycling material is worthless. However, when people don't cooperate, how do you figure out who they are? One rancid milk container spoils the whole load.
Another challenge is to get apartment residents to cooperate enough to make possible the basic six-material recycling program that is practiced in other residences. Even more difficult might be getting apartment managers to cooperate with such a program. If I were a manager, I don't know how excited I would be at the prospect of filling up my tight space with six new containers and having to make room for a truck to unload them once a week.
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