Thank you, Alan, for your input about this and about the air quality
in the region. Air quality is certainly becoming a greater concern, as
we have experienced so many more "bad air" days in Mpls in the past
few years.
Zero Waste sounds so great, but it is so far from a reality! Do we
want to feel good about ourselves, or really work to leave a safe and
healthy world for future generations? The work is daunting, to be
sure. To not take it on is to leave a legacy of suffering and
extinction for future life on this planet.
When we go to the grocery store, or any store, we should look at how
things are packaged and realize that plastic has not always been the
main material used in packaging. We once used mainly glass and
aluminum to package things and that worked well. We also did not use
plastic so gratuitously. For example, so many hardware products are
wrapped in plastic that does not protect a fragile object but is
mainly there to keep a product from being stolen. There has to be
another way. When did people become so "light-fingered"?
We must understand that the term "recyclable" is slippery and is
mainly, unfortunately, a marketing ploy to make people feel good about
buying "green". Once plastic has been produced, there really is
largely no way to reintroduce it into the environment that is not
harmful.
I'm sure people are becoming aware of the plastic micro-fibers that
are permeating a majority of the drinking water on the planet and are
also being ingested by aquatic animals. Larger pieces of plastic are
also being ingested by animals who mistake them for food. This cannot
continue. Yet what choice do people have when they go to the store?
Again, there are too many redundancies in packaging, all to make
people feel safe about what they are purchasing.
Plastic burns well so it can be used to provide energy. Toxic ash is
left after incineration. Storing it in lined landfills is reckless and
not a secure fix, a time bomb that will at some point release toxins
into the environment, especially with the increasing "natural"
disasters that accompany global warming.
What can we do? It isn't enough to pass laws about packaging in our
cities, especially when these are not enforced and seem to not be
taken seriously. Many major cities in the world are banning plastic
bags. These are in countries considered "backward" by the most
over-consuming country in the world.....the United States. Convenience
has become a holy word in our culture thanks to advertising, and the
speed that is worshiped by humans in general. We've gone from the
recycling, re-using generation of post-war America to the throw-away
generation of today.
I believe corporate responsibility is in order, however impossible
that might seem. Minneapolis should look at "best practices" in other
cities, and then go above and beyond. However, I don't really expect
much from our city, considering its present woeful state. Corporate
entities rule here and the majority of elected officials put the
necessity of attention to the environment, education, fair housing,
infrastructure and the like, below the desires of the greedy
one-percent. These selfish and short-sighted people are like the
cowbirds and cuckoos that lay their eggs in other birds' nests,
leaving the less aggressive true offspring to starve. It's a system
that is unsustainable.
Janet Nye
Phillips
Rest of post
On Thu, Sep 14, 2017 at 4:09 PM, Alan Muller <<email obscured>> wrote:
> I haven't seen this otherwise announced on this list--maybe it has
> been, and I missed it--so I will:
>
> Tonight, Thursday, 6 to 8,
>
> Zero Waste Plan Community Meeting
>
> <https://www.facebook.com/pages/Matthews-Park/115680471865835> Park
> 2318 29th Ave S, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55406
>
> The announcement on Facebook by Cam Gordon:
>
> " The City has released a draft of a new citywide Zero Waste plan. To
> share the plan and gather feedback, I am co-hosting a community open
> house with my colleague Abdi Warsame.
>
> Approval of this plan is a critical next step towards reducing waste
> and reaching our goals to recycle and compost 50% of our overall
> waste stream by 2020 and 80% by 2030. The hope is to approve the plan
> this fall. Once approved it will be up to all of us to implement it.
> For some strategies to be successful the continued and vocal support
> of the community will be vital.
>
> If you want to review the plan before the meeting (or later), you can
> find it at
>
<https://www.scribd.com/document/358292142/Zero-Waste-Draft-Plan>
> "
>
> My view:
>
> I'm not going to the meeting but did review the plan.
>
> As one would sadly expect, the "plan" is not a plan and was written
> not by zero waste practitioners but by an engineering firm with a
> client base in garbage incineration.
>
> This is from the note I sent Cam:
>
> "I've had a look at this. It' s not something that could credibly be
> called a "zero waste plan." And no competent Zero Waste practitioner
> would be likely to write nonsense like this "(HERC) a waste to energy
> (WTE) that converts garbage into electricity for power and steam for
> heating and cooling" (page 2) A long of superficial detail but no
> real conceptual framework."
>
> The report does say (page 2): "However, the City does not consider
> energy recovery of waste materials as an applicable method for
> achieving its zero waste goals. There is a strong community interest
> in reducing the quantities of materials transported to HERC for
> energy recovery and increasing the quantities of materials reduced,
> reused, recycled and recovered to create local jobs associated with
> these activities." It would be nice to see a "Zero Waste Plan" that
> actually is one and follows through on this statement.
>
> am
>
> Alan Muller
> N/A, Red Wing, MN
> About/contact Alan Muller: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/alanmuller
>
>
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>
>
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