This evening my family and I attended a public hearing held by our city commissioners. The topic: curbside recycling. Our wonderful little town of "Mayberry" doesn't have it, and after years of egging our community leaders on, they finally scheduled this forum. Strange as it is to say, this has been a contentious issue in our community, as there are some who are vehemently opposed to the idea for a number of reasons. Cost is one of them (and a reasonable one, I confess); but a significant group who view such an initiative as "government intrusion" and even those who see curbside recycling as a not-so-veiled form of socialism (as I highlighted in this previous blog post).
The forum lasted just under two hours. Those who spoke were overwhelmingly in favor of curbside recycling. I didn't keep track, but I would guess that for every one person opposed, four or five were in favor. A lot of the vitriol that had surfaced over the past few weeks in the social media world over this topic was nonexistent.
Both my wife and 8-year old son spoke, as did I. In my comments I approached things from both a pastoral/spiritual angle, as well as a city resident and taxpayer. Below is what I said.
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My friends – tonight I come in two capacities to express my support for curbside recycling – as a pastor and a resident of this wonderful town. As pastor, I come not representing the church I serve, but representing many people of many faiths who understand that the call to take care of God’s earth comes first and foremost from this – the scriptures. In the book of Genesis, which serves as the foundation for some 2.2 billion Christians and Jews worldwide, the scripture says this:
Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth, and over the earth itself.
Sadly, over the years that word “dominion” has been misconstrued to mean “do with the world as you wish.” When in fact, the Hebrew here actually describes a scenario where a servant is entrusted with the care of their master’s possessions. So the world does not belong to us – it belongs to God. Like the Psalmist says in Psalm 24:1: The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.
People of faith all over the world understand God’s mandate to care for creation – including many here in our community, represented in these signed petitions, stating that curbside recycling is not only a civic calling but a spiritual one as well. I submit these to you for public record on their behalf.
The second capacity in which I come tonight is as a citizen of this town – a citizen who recognizes that waste disposal comes at a cost to the taxpayer, no matter how we go about doing it. We can either continue purchasing additional land for the landfill – land which will eventually fill up and cause us to purchase more land – or we can enact a curbside recycling program that, in the long run, will cost the taxpayer less. If we are going to talk about cost in this discussion, as some people are so eager to do, then let us be open and honest about all costs involved.
It’s become apparent that, if curbside recycling is going to happen in Mount Airy, it’s going to require some "forward-thinking" on behalf of you, our city commissioners. Which is why I’m grateful that this is something you all have demonstrated in the past. Five or six years ago, you will recall, Reeves Community Center was in danger of shutting its doors. It would've been easy for you, our elected officials, to have said, "We can't afford to get involved." Instead, you wisely recognized that you couldn't afford NOT to. So you chose to take over Reeves and keep that vital community resource intact.
And, you know, it strikes me that the city didn’t have to hold a public forum back then to discuss this, even though it came at an additional cost to the taxpayer. So why is this issue so much more contentious? The real reason, I would submit, is not about money. The real reason is about doing something new and different; something we’ve never had before. It’s about change. And as creatures of habit, we humans are not very fond of change. But sometimes doing the right thing, doing the smart and sensible thing, doing the economically viable thing, requires that we do something we’ve never done before.
On a personal note: I’ve had the honor of getting to know each of you on a number of levels. I’ve served with you in Rotary and in ministry. I’ve shared the stage with you for shows you were running sound for. I’ve coached your children in swimming, taught them at the college, officiated your daughter’s weddings. I know you love this town and want very much to do the right thing. My friends, this is the right thing! And, contrary to our local newspaper’s editorial yesterday, this is also very much the right time. I implore you, as a fellow citizen and colleague and friend, to once again engage in “forward-thinking” and bring curbside recycling to Mount Airy. Thank you!
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I welcome all comments and thoughts, both those who agree with me and those who don't. Here's the deal - this is my blog, so I reserve the right to delete comments that do one of two things: 1) engage in namecalling, belittling, excessive vitriol or other such nonsense, and/or 2) do not contribute to the dialogue in a meaningful way. If you don't feel you can abide by either of these stipulations, you probably don't need to comment (or just don't get all bent out of shape when I delete it). If you can abide by it, please, comment away.
Steve, the Lindsley's were spot on tonight with a great 3 prong approach.
Posted by: The Commander | April 11, 2011 at 07:47 PM
Mr. Lindsley,
With all do respect, I have to rebute your Biblical quoting...
I feel you set up a false argument so that you could rail against it and in doing so, you was basically making a false accusation and getting on the soapbox of making your argument sound like common sense. You argued stewardship ...ok what does that mean....if it means taking care of what God has blessed us with and not being disrespectful of Gods blessing, then let me ask you this......name one person in there that had said anything against that....EVERYONE there was for recycling and basic cleaning. So now if you agree that every person there was for recycling, you lose your whole argument, at that point it becomes obvious its about convenience and avoiding the personal responsibility of cleaning up after ones self...And from there, it wouldnt be too hard to build a true biblical charge against laziness and slothfulness...
The idea of the ones against curb-side recycling, are branding it as a form of Socialism is not accurate. While I am against Socialism, I'm not(nor ANYONE else in attendance)against recycling and I don't feel this is a form of "Government Intrusion",(clarification: I don't feel the government should provide services that one can find offered in the back of the phone book yellow pages but my argument over this particular matter IS NOT on the basis of "government intrusion") I feel it's frivilous spending of Tax Payer monies on a service that is not worth the cost to provide nor is it a neccessity.
Environment:
EVERY comment FOR the service last night, had to do with or was directed too, "Saving the Environment/Earth"... Environment is simply one's surroundings, not just the air, the earth or the land.. Surroundings include the chair next to you, the table next to you, the pair of shoes next to you, the person sitting next to you etc.. It is SIMPLY ones surroundings.. To many people, it is axiomatic that recycling protects the environment. The position of the Natural Resources Defense Council is typical: “It is virtually beyond dispute
that manufacturing products from recyclables instead of from virgin raw materials—making, for instance, paper out of old newspapers
instead of virgin timber—causes less pollution and imposes fewer burdens on the earth’s natural habitat and biodiversity”. Yet this assumption
is not merely beyond dispute; it is wrong in many instances. Recycling is a manufacturing process, and therefore it too has environmental impact. The U.S. Office of Technology Assessment
(1989, 191) says that it is “usually not clear whether secondary manufacturing [such as recycling] produces less pollution per ton
of material processed than primary manufacturing processes.” Indeed, the Office of Technology Assessment goes on to explain why:
Recycling changes the nature of pollution,sometimes increasing it
and sometimes decreasing it.
For example, the EPA examined both virgin paper processing and recycled paper processing for toxic substances. Five toxic substances
were found only in virgin processes, eight only in recycling processes, and twelve in both processes. Among these twelve, all
but one were present in higher levels in the recycling processes. Similar mixed results have
been found for steel and aluminum production. Indeed, over the past twenty years, a large body of literature devoted to life-cycle analyses
of products from their birth to death has repeatedly found that recycling can increase pollution as well as decrease it. This effect is particularly apparent in the case of curbside recycling,which is mandated or strongly encouraged by governments in many communities around the country. Curbside recycling requires
that more trucks be used to collect the same amount of waste materials, trucks that pick up perhaps four to eight pounds of
recyclables, rather than forty or more pounds of rubbish. Los Angeles has estimated that because it has curbside recycling, its fleet
of trucks is twice as large as it otherwise would be—800 versus 400
trucks. This means more iron ore and coal mining, more steel and rubber manufacturing,more petroleum extracted and refined for
fuel—and of course all that extra air pollution in the Los Angeles basin as the 400 added trucks cruise the streets. Proponents of recycling would rather not discuss such environmental
tradeoffs. As a result, there is a recurring tendency for misinformation to become conventional wisdom and to halt debate.
Consider disposable diapers. The New York Times has called
them the “symbol of the nation’s garbage crisis”
and the Portland Oregonian once reported that they made up one quarter of the contents of Portland area landfills. But systematic study of this issue reveals that disposable diapers amount to perhaps one percent of landfill contents. Claims by the EPA and the media painted disposables into an untenable corner before the facts ever got out. Moreover, reusable
diapers are not environmentally friendlier than disposable diapers—
but it took years for the popular press to stop parroting the myth that they are. Similar discrepancies between reality and perceptions crop up in the case of polystyrene. During the 1980s, widespread opposition to polystyrene developed, predicated on the notion that paper was an environmentally superior packaging product. Once again, systematic
study reveals that “common knowledge” can be uncommonly misleading. Indeed, there appears to be no environmental advantage
to using paper rather than polystyrene in packaging. If one is chiefly concerned about pollution from the petroleum used to make styrene, the edge goes to paper; but if one’s
concern is about the water pollution that accompanies paper production,then styrene is environmentally friendlier. As with most
things in life, there are tradeoffs—in this case, they are environmental
tradeoffs that are not always apparent at first (or even second)glance. Making good policy requires that these tradeoffs be fully and
correctly assessed. Any failure to do so will always yield bad policy.
Yet another source of confusion about the environmental impact
of recycling stems from the fact that recycling-based secondary manufacturing generally uses less energy and consumes less raw
materials than does primary manufacturing. This is true enough,but used materials have value in the marketplace precisely because
they enable manufacturers to use fewer raw materials and less energy.
There is no “extra” value simply because recycling uses less energy or material. All raw materials and energy savings are fully
accounted for when we compare the costs of recycling versus other
forms of disposal. Separate reference to these savings is simply an
attempt (perhaps an unwitting one) to double-count them. Any failure to recognize this will always overstate the benefits of recycling.
Landfills:
We are not running out of landfill space.. Through the years, it has been inaccuratley reported on(mainly EPA). Their argument has always been about the number of Landfills and NOT the capacity of Landfills. Allen Geswein, an EPA official and one of the authors of an EPA study, remarked, “I’ve always
wondered where that crap about a landfill capacity crisis came from". The claim that our trash might poison us is impossible to completely
refute, because the charge almost always leveled is that landfills are a “threat” to human health and welfare. Almost anything can pose a threat, but evidence of actual harm from landfills is remarkably difficult to uncover.The EPA itself acknowledges that the risks to humans (and presumably plants and animals) from modern landfills are virtually nonexistent. The agency ALSO concluded that landfills constructed according to EPA regulations can be expected to
cause 5.7 cancer-related deaths over the next 300 years—one every 50 years (EPA 1990, 1991; Goodstein 1995). To put this in perspective,cancer kills over 560,000 people every year in the United States, and celery, pears, and lettuce are all considerably more dangerous to humans than are modern landfills.
Natural Resources: Forest
One argument made for recycling notes that we live on a finite planet. With a growing population, we must, it seems, run out of
resources. We ARE NOT running out of Natural Resources.Recycling does potentially help the longevity of the "raw material stock", PRIVATE companies are ALREADY implimenting those practices. Available stocks of those resources are actually growing,and there is every reason to expect such growth to continue if the private sector is allowed to continue performing its functions. Consider forests. The amount of new growth that occurs each year in forests exceeds by a factor of twenty the amount of wood and paper that is consumed by the world each year. True, losses of forest land are taking place in tropical forests,where they are occurring at a rate of perhaps one percent per year but it is mainly in areas where Governments have failed to protect private property in forest or have encouraged folks to treat forest as common land, especially Tropical Forest to make quick cash. More recycling of paper or cardboard would not eliminate today’s forest losses but more enforcement of property rights would help.
Natural Resorces: Fossil Fuel
There is plenty of fossil fuel available for the foreseeable future. What is true for energy is true for other resources. There is no sign that humans will run out of resources in the foreseeable future. Many life forms exist today in the quantities they do only because
humans use them, and thus have taken care to make sure they are abundant. My point is that the desire to use natural resources encourages people to conserve them and even, to the extent possible, create more of them. Any view that ignores this simple fact will always produce incorrect conclusions.
On average, curbside recycling is substantially more costly—that is, it uses far more resources—
than a program in which disposal is combined with a voluntary drop-off/buy-back option. The reason: Curbside recycling of household RUBBISH uses huge amounts of capital and labor per
pound of material recycled. Overall, curbside recycling costs run between 35 percent and 55 percent higher than the disposal option. Curbside recycling is “like moving from once-a-week garbage collection to twice a week”. In light of these facts, why do so many people think recycling conserves resources? First, many states and local communities subsidize recycling programs, either out of tax receipts or out of
fees collected for trash disposal. Thus the bookkeeping costs reported for such programs are far less than their true resource costs to a society. Also, observers sometimes errantly
compare relatively high-cost twice a week garbage pickup with relatively low-cost once or twice a month recycling pickups,
which makes recycling appear more attractive.
Confusion also arises because many people focus on narrow aspects of recycling. They may highlight high-value items such as
aluminum cans, or stress the value of recyclable items in periods of their greatest historical value, or focus on communities where
high landfill costs make recycling more competitive. Far from saving resources, curbside recycling typically wastes resources—resources that could be used productively elsewhere
in society. Indeed, a moment’s reflection will suggest why this finding must be true. In the ordinary course of everyday living, we reuse (and
sometimes recycle) almost everything that plays a role in our daily consumption activities. The only things that intentionally end up in municipal solid waste—the trash—are both low in value and costly to reuse or recycle. Yet these are the items that municipal recycling programs are targeting, the very things that people have
already decided are too worthless or too costly to deal with further. This simple fact that means that the vast bulk of all curbside
recycling programs must waste resources: All of the profitable, socially productive, wealth-enhancing opportunities for recycling were
long ago co-opted by the private sector.
Commercial and industrial recycling is a vibrant, profitable market that turns discards and scraps into marketable products. But
collecting from consumers is far more costly, and it results in the collection of items that are far less valuable. Only disguised subsidies
and accounting tricks can prevent the municipal systems from looking as bad as they are.
Except in a few rare cases, the free market system is eminently capable of providing both disposal and recycling in an amount and mix that creates the greatest wealth for society. This makes possible the widest and most satisfying range of human endeavors.
If recycling and the "environement" is SO important to the folks of our community, than why don't we start a group of some sort that goes around to these peoples houses(that were spoke of last night that are not able)and get their recycables for them? Why don't we take the time to grab a bag and stop on the side of the road to clean up trash out of these ditches? Why don't we have community VOLUNTEERS to man these recycling centers so they be open more frequently? It's not about JUST recycling the used product but if people are so worried about saving the earth, why don't they pay attention to what they consume to begin with? If someone is drinking 1 or 2 gallons of milk a day, than I suggest they buy a cow.. Not meaning to sound so sarcastic but I'm just trying to say, there IS MORE we can do around here to help with recycling, then to impliment a policy that WILL burden the tax payer. The gentleman whom spoke last night about some folks can't afford $2.00, well... some folks(alot of folks)CAN'T AFFORD $2.00 right now!! And it WILL evenually have to be MANDITORY for the program to work.
Well, I hope you didn't mind me posting my thoughts and yes, my objection to it here in our town is strictly cost.. I know my rambling got off on a tangent about "recycling" period but, I AM NOT against(as it may seem)recycling all together.. I am however, against indoctrine our children and youth with the notion to be a "model citizen", one has to partake in the practice or it's contributing to the demise of our "Planet Earth"..
Sincerely
Velvet
Posted by: velvet | April 12, 2011 at 07:14 AM
Ms. Shelton, thanks very much for your comments here. I will agree that cost is a main concern and something the city will have to wrestle with should they choose to move forward. I feel you and I will probably have to disagree on biblical interpretation, although I certainly respect your right to believe what you will. I appreciate you speaking at the forum last night. To be honest, I wish more people against it had chosen to speak as you did, as I know they were in attendance last night.
On a separate note, thank you for what you do highlighting new businesses in town on the city's Facebook group. I checked out that nursery on Lebanon that you mentioned and really liked it!
Blessings, Steve
Posted by: Steve | April 12, 2011 at 07:49 AM
Thank you much Mr. Lindsley!!!
Posted by: velvet | April 12, 2011 at 07:57 AM