Clearwater/NYPIRG/Sierra Club: 85% recycling rate by 2020-- time for Dutchess!...

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20120212/NEWS04/302120015/Outdoor-Notes-Feb-13-19

Dutchess County Solid Waste Plans Discussion - The Crafted Kup Coffeehouse, 44 Raymond Ave., Poughkeepsie. 7-9 p.m. Feb. 16. The League of Women Voters will discuss what is going on with the Resource Recovery Agency now that Dutchess County has taken over the job of solid waste management. With the Solid Waste Coordinator, Lindsay Carille. Desert and beverages will be available for purchase. Admission is free. 845-340-2003.

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[email lcarille@co.dutchess.ny.us, countyexec@co.dutchess.ny.us, countylegislators@co.dutchess.ny.us]

[recall facts-- http://dutchessdemocracy.blogspot.com/2011/10/rally-for-zero-waste-oct-27th-save.html ;
http://www.dutchessdemocracy.blogspot.com/2012/01/re-rra-gop-now-ready-to-pass-our-dem.html ]

[174 at "Zero Waste Dutchess"Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=130081000338005 ]
[join 90+ Dutchess folks signed to my zero-waste petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/zeroyes ...Joel]

Fact: Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Clearwater, Sierra Club, NYPIRG, EANY, Citizens Environmental Coalition, and all of the members of the NYS Zero Waste Coalition call for a green-jobs, cost-saving 85%-recycling-rate-by-2020 rate. [why can't Dutchess County embrace this as well?]
[see: http://www.cectoxic.org/ZeroWaste.html ]

Fact: Dutchess County now incinerates or sends to landfills $15 million worth of materials and resources that could be recycled, including plant debris, food waste, paper, wood, ceramics, soils, metals, glass, polymers, textiles, chemicals, and various items for reuse (Richard Anthony Associates).
[see: http://ccgovernment.carr.org/ccg/pubworks/sw-future/docs/resource-assessment.pdf : MD like NYS!]

Fact: Ten times more jobs could be created by moving towards a zero-waste approach to resource recovery compared to incineration/landfilling, according to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance; locally this means 500 new jobs could be created right here in Dutchess County if those materials were recycled instead of burned or buried, according to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance/Rick Anthony.
[see: http://www.ilsr.org/recycling/recyclingmeansbusiness.html ]

Fact: The city of Springfield, Mass. recently saved $75,000 in just the first half of this year alone by expanding recycling to one-third of the city; it expects to save $450,000 a year through greatly expanded recycling. ["Springfield Municipal Recycling Initiative To Expand" (WAMC's Paul Tuthill 7/10)
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wamc/news.newsmain/article/0/0/1679516/news/Municipal.Recycling.Initative.To.Expand

Fact: The Poughkeepsie Journal reported March 7, 2010 that emissions from our county incinerator of particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, and nitrogen oxide have all increased over the last decade-- along with the fact that, on an annual basis, our county incinerator also creates 50,000 tons of toxic ash-- and spews 29 pounds of heavy metals (mercury/arsenic/lead/cadmium), 37 tons of sulfur dioxide, 22 tons of hydrogen chloride/hydrogen fluoride, and 3700 tons of carbon dioxide.
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20100307/NEWS01/3070350/Burn-plants-seem-cleaner-but-facts-debated

Fact: Last spring Dutchess air was ranked "F" for third year in a row by the American Lung Association.
[ http://www.ALANY.org ]

Fact: Dutchess County incinerator in Poughkeepsie spews 3700 tons of carbon emissions yearly.
[ http://www.CARMA.org ; http://www.StopTrashingtheClimate.org ; recall http://www.350.org !]

Fact: "The Dutchess County trash-burning plant needs millions from taxpayers to break even each year, costs 46 percent more to operate than 13 other plants in New York and Connecticut and has debts stretching beyond all of them." [Poughkeepsie Journal 5/10/09]
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20090510/NEWS01/905100344/Dutchess-County-Resource-Recovery-Agency-Inefficient-expensive-in-debt

Fact: The cost of disposing of the Dutchess County Incinerator's 50,000 tons of toxic ash annually has doubled in recent years to three million dollars a year, according to former Dutchess County Resource Recovery Agency Board Chair William Conners-- statement made: Co. Leg. chambers in 2010.
[ http://www.no-burn.org/why-incineration-is-a-very-bad-idea-in-the-twenty-first-century (Paul Connett)]

[note-- re: Shabazz info below-- for more on this see http://www.GreenwayNY.com ]

Fact: Shabazz Jackson for years now has taken all of the
food waste from Vassar, Marist, and SUNY New
Paltz and mixed it with yard waste-- and just
over the past year has gotten the
Poughkeepsie Town Board (including Town Supervisor
there Pat Myers) to vote unanimously to allow
Shabazz to expand food-waste composting operation
he's run for years at Vassar Farms to 70 acres on
DeGarmo Road(!).
[this is clear example for Rhinebeck and all of
our municipalities; organics make up half
wastestream]

[see "Case for Composting" 3/22/10 Boston Globe
http://www.greenchange.org/article.php?id=5692 !]
Fact: The woody waste and other yard waste
(leaves/grass) sitting in piles at the Rhinebeck
Town Dump (on Stone Church Rd.) is the PERFECT
material that Shabazz has proven can be mixed
with food waste to make valuable compost and
biofiltration soils to spec!...(Shabazz and I
have seen this).

[here in Dutchess, Royal Carting tried 177-home
food-waste collection pilot program in Beacon]
[see below-- Massachusetts Municipal Association
( http://www.MMA.org ) Associate Editor Mitch
Evich last May 5th ran an article about the
successful curbside collection of food waste in
the towns of Hamilton and Wenham-- referring to
how "organic waste accounts for roughly 40
percent of the solid waste that the typical
household generates (about 10-12 pounds out of 27
pounds per week)": savings!]

Recall the front-page article about Shabazz in
the Poughkeepsie Journal April 3, 2008 on great
food-waste composting operation in Poughkeepsie
using materials from Vassar and Marist to produce
extremely valuable compost in high demand at
non-odor facility (Vassar Farm); see:
http://groups.google.com/group/planputnam/msg/bb0dd1fd8ca9441a
; http://greenwayny.com/beta/about/?id=bio ;
http://www.recycle.net/trade/aa945288.html ;
http://www.grn.com/trade/aa945288.html ; http://nysawg.org/news.php?id=40 .

Remember, too-- even back in '09 I succeeded in
convincing Northern Dutchess Hospital, Baptist
Home at Brookmeade, and folks from Fairgrounds
and the Rhinebeck Central School District to all
endorse the notion of moving Rhinebeck towards
zero waste-- saving $$$ with food waste
collection (remember Northern Dutchess News
article on all this from summer of '09; other
local media ignored this-- why?)...
[see:
http://www.elementalimpact.org/ZWZDowntownAtlanta
-- Atlanta is great example for Dutchess; many
restaurants, entertainment and convention centers
there saving money separating food waste!]

The City of Toronto has proven for years now that
it actually saves tax dollars to have businesses
and homeowners separate their food waste for
weekly curbside collection-- because now, as a
result of this, they only have to have their
garbage collected once every other week(!)...why
can't we do this here?...
[see: http://www.toronto.ca/greenbin/card.htm ]

Fact: Incinerator folks don't even want food
waste; it's highly inefficient to burn (over 70%
water; see http://www.Cool2012.com ).
Fact: Ithaca, Portland, Seattle, Boulder,
Cambridge, and communities across Vermont, North
Carolina, Minnesota, Michigan, California have
smartly moved towards zero waste with food-waste
composting
[ http://www.cool2012.com/community/collection/
http://www.jgpress.com/archives/_free/000525.html
;
http://www.recycletompkins.org/editorstree/view/177
; http://ccetompkins.org/compost/index.html ]

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From http://www.CECToxic.org ...
Citizens' Environmental Coalition is New York's leading environmental health organization. CEC was founded in 1983 by community leaders organizing to clean up toxic sites. Find out more

CEC News
-----------------------------
More recycling will create 1.5 million new U.S. jobs

November 14, 2011

More Jobs, Less Pollution: Growing the Recycling Economy in the U.S. shows how a stronger recycling economy would create 1.5 million new jobs in manufacturing, collection, and other careers. If done right, recycling jobs can be quality jobs with family-supporting wages.
Click Here to read the report's key findings: http://www.RecyclingWorksCampaign.org .
Click Here to download the full report: http://www.cectoxic.org/Recycling_Jobs_Full_Report_1_.pdf .
Burning Public Money for Dirty Energy
CEC co-released the report, Burning Public Money for Dirty Energy, produced by GAIA, the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives. The report exposes why the Incinerator Industry has been working so hard to paint themselves as Green, which has included deliberately misrepresenting the benefits and drawbacks of this technology. They have a strong motivation-- they want to obtain huge subsidies, millions of dollars of green cash. This is a particularly important time for the public to be asking what kind of a future we want to have, when public officials seek to remove funding from essential programs, while providing extraordinary subsidies to those dirty industries that produce pollution and harm public health. The report also provides case studies of a few incinerators that have caused serious financial harm to local communities.

Click here to read the report: http://www.no-burn.org/burning-public-money-for-dirty-energy
GARBAGE INCINERATION IS EXPENSIVE AND POLLUTIVE
What is the most costly way to produce electricity? Garbage Incineration! At $8232/kW for capital costs it is more costly than other ways of generating electricity by a very wide margin. Operating costs are the highest too.
Click here for EIA Report on Electricity Costs:
http://www.eia.gov/oiaf/beck_plantcosts/pdf/updatedplantcosts.pdf
The Story of Broke
The United States isn't broke; we're the richest country on the planet and a country in which the richest among us are doing exceptionally well. But the truth is, our economy is broken, producing more pollution, greenhouse gasses and garbage than any other country. In these and so many other ways, it just isn't working. But rather than invest in something better, we continue to keep this 'dinosaur economy' on life support with hundreds of billions of dollars of our tax money. The Story of Broke calls for a shift in government spending toward investments in clean, green solutions-renewable energy, safer chemicals and materials, zero waste and more-that can deliver jobs AND a healthier environment. It's time to rebuild the American Dream; but this time, let's build it better.
Click here to watch The Story of Broke: http://www.storyofstuff.org/movies-all/story-of-broke/
#############################################

Recall...

From Institute for Local Self-Reliance President Neil Seldman: "these are the zero waste/resource
management plans ILSR has assisted with in the
US.:
http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/sws/zerowaste_masterplan.htm
-- zero waste plan Austin, TX
http://compostingconsultant.com/images2/hawaii-zero-waste-plan.pdf
-- zero waste plan for Hawaii Co.
http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/LGCentral/Library/infoCycling/2001/Winter/DelNorte.htm
-- zero DelNorte
http://www.ilsr.org/recycling/delaware-resource-management.pdf
: Resource Management in Delaware.

[also see:
http://www.ilsr.org/recycling/links.html ;
http://www.ilsr.org/pubs/2010yearendreport.pdf ;
Neil S."Wasted Energy: Debunking Waste-to-Energy
Scheme" http://www.emagazine.com/view/?4315 ]