"If there’s a world here in a hundred years, it’s going to be saved by tens of millions of little things. The powers-that-be can break up any big thing they want. They can corrupt it or co-opt it from the inside, or they can attack it from the outside. But what are they going to do about 10 million little things? They break up two of them, and three more like them spring up!"
- Pete Seeger, in YES! Magazine

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Recycling - plastic bottles, aluminum cans

The project:
Deliver our recycling to the local center.

Time:
15 minutes

Why bother?
Well, besides the obvious (we get our California recycling deposit back, aka cash), our local landfill is nearly full. Yep, they're building another one so we can continue to toss our refuse. In fact, Santa Maria's new dump is located in beautiful, oak-studded rolling hills south of the city. Nope, not in city limits. They'll line it with 100-year plastic (ahem), then dump there, leaving future generations to figure out how to deal with the hazardous waste the city also plans on importing (income generation) from other communities.

I wish more people would recycle so our landfills wouldn't so quickly fill and our natural resources be depleted. I wish cities would plan further into the future. I wish this city in particular would serve its own citizens' needs before conniving for funding inappropriately spent. Then again, what do I know about city planning.

Marin County, as I understand it, has a model recycling program, from hog farm for certain greenwaste, to mulching and composting, to our more traditional glass/paper/metal recycling programs. Why doesn't Santa Maria look to that county, and other successful, more resource-friendly programs?

Worth it?
Yes, but I wish I could do more.
Posted by JenPB at 9:57 AM

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