RE: Limits

Thanks to Burgy for alerting us to this book. I'll have to read it. In my
small town (~1500 inhabitants) we have a well-developed recycling program
and, as a result, our weekly garbage bag for two adults is no more than 20L
in volume. What happens to the rest? The rest is segregated: newspapers,
cardboard, corrugated cardboard, various plastics, glass, tin cans, aluminum
in all forms go to individual bins. Non-meat food scraps are composted.
Our recycle centre even has a "wine bottle exchange" where wine
buyers/drinkers bring their empties and wine makers pick them up to bottle
their homemade wine.

Still, I'm amazed at the amount of stuff I cart to the recycle centre every
month and I wonder how we can reduce that amount. I suppose the daily
newspaper could go and we could buy some foods in bulk stores but, maybe the
answer is to simply get by with less.

I do take issue with Burgy's last sentence, "The call is to industry to
clean up their act." To me, this can only be accomplished through
legislation or public pressure. To many, legislation is an anathema and,
even if one could legislate, what would prevent industries from simply
moving their operation offshore? This is already happening as a result of
environmental laws. The only real option has to be public pressure.

Chuck Vandergraaf
  

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Carol or John Burgeson
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 10:12 AM
To: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Limits

Al Koop wrote, i part: "Finally, in the long run, as a biologist familiar
with the limits of growth, I just don't see how the human population can
grow much longer without reaching a limit. With questions already of
fresh water, food, and waste disposal limitations, I consider it more
likely than not that we have exceeded the carrying capacity of this
planet already."

On that note, I just wrote a book review for the Rico Bugle on GARBAGE
LAND, by Elizabeth Royte. ISBN 0-316-73826-3. It is a new release.

I've not yet decided to submit a version of the review to PERSPECTIVES or
add it to my web site. So here is the review as it will be published.
----------------------------------------------------
This is a serious book about the garbage underworld. This world is
strange, murky, complicated. The book is entertaining, scary and
inspirational. Royte describes our "throw away culture," the graveyards
of our dead batteries, broken cell phones, obsolete electronics, diapers,
junk cars, cast off clothes, plastic bottles, even the ubiquitous twist
ties. She takes us to the dumps, to the recycling plants, to the sewage
processing plants, and in these journeys aptly describes and quantifies
our base ecological problems.

Many waste problems appear solvable, at least if one does not mind
increasingly larger landfills, and there is still plenty of room on the
planet for these. But some problems don't, at least not in the long term.
Mercury from the ten million batteries produced each year. Medical waste,
often radioactive. Plastics, which do not biodegrade, but persist for
centuries. Long lasting toxic chemicals.

A few of the many statistics in this volume. The U.S. scraps ten million
autos every year. Most of this scrap metal is sold to China. Over a
trillion aluminum cans are now buried in landfills; the recycle rate is
between 40 and 50 percent or that number would be higher. The value of
these cans is about $21 billion at 2004 prices; sooner or later the
landfills will be mined. There are 150 million PCs now buried in
landfills, each one a repository of several pounds of toxic chemicals.
But it's worse! To MAKE every one of those PCs took about 3500 pounds of
raw material, all but a fraction of which is ultimately waste! McDonald's
generates enough trash, just at the customer end, every DAY to fill the
Empire State Building.

Royte ends with a chapter on "The Ecological Citizen," one who recycles,
composts, and does all the "right" things. For those who see in these
commendable activities an acceptable solution to the nation's waste
problems, the book may be a "downer." Recycling plastics, for instance,
may be more harmful than burying them. One simple statistic grabbed my
attention in this respect. Our municipal waste, including food scraps,
bottles, yard waste, paper, etc. accounts for a whopping 2% (TWO PERCENT)
of all the waste generated every year. The other 98% is generated in the
manufacture of the goods we consume. The call is to industry to clean up
their act.
\--------------
Burgy
Received on Thu Jan 12 16:38:23 2006