Posted Thursday, September 17th, 2009 at 2:35 pm on AltDaily.com
by Amelia Baker
When the reports about SPSA (Southeastern Public Service Authority) discontinuing its curbside recycling made front page news a few weeks back, I was so very excited. Why? First of all, to set the record straight, Hampton Roads’ recycling isn’t going anywhere. It’s just getting a face lift.
But I’m excited because this means that our clunky recycling program is getting a much-needed shot to better its services.
Allow me to elaborate on why I think it’s pretty darn great that SPSA is finally throwing in the towel. Though there are financial and logistical reasons that this turn of events is oh so good, I must tell you about my very first experience with SPSA.
If you’ve been to Green Alternatives, you know that we offer ourselves up as a drop-off point to encourage residents to recycle many things, including batteries. One morning, my husband loaded up his trunk full of batteries that we’d excitedly collected and took them to SPSA to be recycled during one of their highly inconvenient hazardous waste collection days. He got there only to find out that they wouldn’t take them from us.
The reason? The mere fact that Green Alternatives was a business and not a “resident” made us ineligible to take our hazardous waste to SPSA. Infuriated, I called SPSA in a tizzy ready to defend my position as a local do-gooder who was just trying to do the right thing.
Thirty minutes later, I was in a yelling match with one of the directors which went something like,“Are you kidding me that you would rather me throw 400 pounds of batteries into the trash instead of recycling them?!?” and the response was “Sorry, we can’t help you.” Keeping this family-friendly, I won’t share the entire dialog, but know that my strongly worded threats went nowhere. So there you have it. That was my first experience with SPSA, which was less than pleasant.
Other than my personal resentment, hear me out on actual business faux-pas. For a while, SPSA has been fighting bankruptcy. Its barely afloat business has been offered buy-out packages from RDS and ReEnergy which were all quickly shot-down. At inception, SPSA was worth about $8 million and now is only worth about $4 million. If you ask me, when your business is only worth half of what it cost to start it up 20+ years later, you clearly must be doing something wrong; besides the fact that it’s in the red $240 million.
So you see: SPSA’s lackluster performance coming to an end is a blessing. Now, the fine cities that make up Hampton Roads are free to contract with the best of the best. After the news was publicized earlier this month, I promptly called my local municipality to encourage the adoption of a recycling program that actually recycles. It’s rather frustrating to throw away plastic tubs and containers when they can ALL be recycled. I hate telling eager greenies that unfortunately our area doesn’t offer any recycling of plastics unless they’re bottle-shaped. It takes a little wind out of my sail every time I have to utter those depressing words.
Because I strongly believe that you can’t complain about something unless you furnish a valid solution, I’ve done some research and would like to offer up the answer to our recycles woes: Recycle Bank, a genius concept that gathers phenomenal amounts of recycling and rewards households with gift cards and other goodies just for recycling. If you haven’t heard of this fantastic firm, you should check them out.
Though this is my very personal and somewhat biased opinion, I felt it necessary to vent about my SPSA debacle because now is the time to pass on your two cents before another shoddy contract is signed for our curbside recycling programs.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
Thrive Magazine
Hey Thrive Fans,
I must say that I was stoked to learn that Thrive, a magazine dedicated to healthy, sustainable living, had arrived earlier this year. Gina, the publisher, is a fantastic person and I wished her nothing but success in her journey to bring a greenie rag to Hampton Roads' more than 1.6 million residents. In true green form, Gina will be converting Thrive to online reading and paid print/mailed issues at the beginning of 2010 which I think is an excellent option. Let's face it, web reading is the way to go. In a moment's notice, a new hot story could be posted a kick-butt product reviewed and so on.
Anyway, the reason for the rambling is to encourage all of the local greenies (and beyond) to sign up for Thrive's e-subscription. Don't worry, it's totally free!
Here's the link to sign up for the paperless Thrive.
I must say that I was stoked to learn that Thrive, a magazine dedicated to healthy, sustainable living, had arrived earlier this year. Gina, the publisher, is a fantastic person and I wished her nothing but success in her journey to bring a greenie rag to Hampton Roads' more than 1.6 million residents. In true green form, Gina will be converting Thrive to online reading and paid print/mailed issues at the beginning of 2010 which I think is an excellent option. Let's face it, web reading is the way to go. In a moment's notice, a new hot story could be posted a kick-butt product reviewed and so on. Anyway, the reason for the rambling is to encourage all of the local greenies (and beyond) to sign up for Thrive's e-subscription. Don't worry, it's totally free!
Here's the link to sign up for the paperless Thrive.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Trash Talk: What Happens to Hampton Roads’ Trash?
Posted Thursday, September 3rd, 2009 at 6:39 pm on AltDaily.com
by Amelia Baker
The adage “throw away” is rather misleading because when you throw something away, it doesn’t really go away. It actually heads to one of about 3,000 active landfills littering the country. As a Seven Cities local, rolling your 95-gallon cart to the curb every week you probably don’t give it a second thought, but let’s follow your garbage to the grave.
If you’re feeling up to it, you can absolutely take a field trip to follow your trash, however I’m sure not too many of you are up for visiting a sticky, smelly, seagull-swirling mound of refuse. And, if you took the trip to see the absurd amount of trash, you’d probably be appalled.
Just think; the average American generates more than 4 pounds of trash a day – Hampton Roads has about 1.6 million residents which suggests our local community generates 6.4 million pounds of trash a day and 2.3 billion pounds of waste a year. (Trash estimate based on average accumulation per day and local resident population.)
True to schedule, your friendly haulers from Southeastern Public Service Authority (SPSA) lift and dump every week. Trash heads over to the waste management plant before finding its final destination path. Some junk is bound for the waste to energy plant in Portsmouth. The remainder realizes its terminal resting place in the Suffolk landfill.
Landfills, by the way, with all of the layers upon layers of garbage, are separated from the earth beneath them with a thin (0.1 inches thick) plastic liner. Though much of our trash would probably decompose naturally and break down (plastics excluded), conditions in dumps don’t allow for much degradation.
During the slow landfill breakdown, a fairly significant amount of methane gas is released. You may be familiar with methane gas in the form of cow burps. Methane can be used as a fuel source and our local Newport News landfill captures methane and uses it to power the plant. Hey, at least the dump is a little green.
Rubbish that makes it to the energy plant is burned to produce power. This might sound environmentally sound, but trash burning has implications too in the form of chemicals released during burn, ash, and air pollution.
Knowing all of this weighs on the conscience of myself and my husband. That’s why we work our tails off to buy products with minimal packaging, to compost, to recycle, and to reuse as often as possible. All of these fantastic alternatives divert about 80% of our weekly accumulation, leaving us with less than five pounds of trash a week.
I’m pretty sure landfills will continue to be a prominent part of the waste process, but this is where every little bit will help. Challenge yourselves to reduce your trash pile every week. By using your local recycling program you can give cans, bottles, cardboard, and paper a new life.
Do something cool. Recycle.
by Amelia Baker
The adage “throw away” is rather misleading because when you throw something away, it doesn’t really go away. It actually heads to one of about 3,000 active landfills littering the country. As a Seven Cities local, rolling your 95-gallon cart to the curb every week you probably don’t give it a second thought, but let’s follow your garbage to the grave.
If you’re feeling up to it, you can absolutely take a field trip to follow your trash, however I’m sure not too many of you are up for visiting a sticky, smelly, seagull-swirling mound of refuse. And, if you took the trip to see the absurd amount of trash, you’d probably be appalled.
Just think; the average American generates more than 4 pounds of trash a day – Hampton Roads has about 1.6 million residents which suggests our local community generates 6.4 million pounds of trash a day and 2.3 billion pounds of waste a year. (Trash estimate based on average accumulation per day and local resident population.)
True to schedule, your friendly haulers from Southeastern Public Service Authority (SPSA) lift and dump every week. Trash heads over to the waste management plant before finding its final destination path. Some junk is bound for the waste to energy plant in Portsmouth. The remainder realizes its terminal resting place in the Suffolk landfill.
Landfills, by the way, with all of the layers upon layers of garbage, are separated from the earth beneath them with a thin (0.1 inches thick) plastic liner. Though much of our trash would probably decompose naturally and break down (plastics excluded), conditions in dumps don’t allow for much degradation.
During the slow landfill breakdown, a fairly significant amount of methane gas is released. You may be familiar with methane gas in the form of cow burps. Methane can be used as a fuel source and our local Newport News landfill captures methane and uses it to power the plant. Hey, at least the dump is a little green.
Rubbish that makes it to the energy plant is burned to produce power. This might sound environmentally sound, but trash burning has implications too in the form of chemicals released during burn, ash, and air pollution.
Knowing all of this weighs on the conscience of myself and my husband. That’s why we work our tails off to buy products with minimal packaging, to compost, to recycle, and to reuse as often as possible. All of these fantastic alternatives divert about 80% of our weekly accumulation, leaving us with less than five pounds of trash a week.
I’m pretty sure landfills will continue to be a prominent part of the waste process, but this is where every little bit will help. Challenge yourselves to reduce your trash pile every week. By using your local recycling program you can give cans, bottles, cardboard, and paper a new life.
Do something cool. Recycle.
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