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Keeping our planet clean; furniture out of the alleys, oil out of the water, is a never ending struggle being fought, by in large, under the average person’s radar. I have to admit I don’t always find myself ruminating on the destiny of my trash as I tote my weekly collection to the curb; but other times, such as when I spy a McDonalds cup being tossed from a passing bus window, I feel a sudden pang of dismay; “Where does it all go?”
Heather Rogers, author of two books on current environmental issues, one on the business of waste management, and another recently on the challenges facing the organic food movement, was in town this week to give a talk at Red Emma’s Coffeehouse in Mt. Vernon, Baltimore. Rogers’ last book, The Hidden Life of Garbage , is a fascinating look into the big business behind cleaning up other people’s messes. Businesses and municipalities pay a lot of money to keep a network of public and private ‘waste managers’ moving, and our institutions clean and functioning. Dealing with waste is a tenuous exercise from an environmental standpoint, with no one solution offering a magic bullet. Almost everything has a drawback. The deciding factors in how our waste is handled are money, technology and public attitude. For example, 90% of Baltimore’s “waste stream”, goes up in smoke at a private incineration plant on Russell Street. The heat and steam created are used to generate electricity for downtown use. Expensive pollution controls installed in the mid-90’s prevent the worst chemicals from spewing into the city air. Ashes and things that don’t burn-up are taken to the city landfill.
Efforts made by Baltimoreans in recent years to shrink the amount of waste the city must burn or bury have improved due the institution of single-stream recycling— a fantastic step towards a greener future and a reflection of how public involvement makes a difference. Some more progressive cities like San Francisco and Vancouver, BC are experimenting with citywide composting as a means to reduce their waste-streams further, offering the resultant rich compost, perfect garden soil, back to the public at cost. This option may prove viable for Baltimore in the future. The EPA estimates that on average 26% of the country’s solid waste stream is composed of food and yard waste—that’s a lot of potential bonafide-Baltimore compost that could be coming to a garden near you instead of going up the chimney into the air.
This past Tuesday at Red Emma’s Coffeehouse in Mt. Vernon, Rogers led a fascinating talk on the emerging challenges to organic food and eco-consciousness. Her latest book, Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy Is Undermining the Environmental Revolution focuses on the problems of keeping green products green as demand goes through the roof. One point that came up repeatedly in the post-talk discussion forum was the importance of getting communities engaged in ‘grass roots’ agriculture. The big question is how. Government budgets at all levels are tight these days, but there are a smattering of programs and projects that are encouraging residents of the Baltimore region to get involved.
The Baltimore City farming project is providing a place where people who lack gardening space or knowhow can find both. Baltimore County has, for the second year in a row, offered discounted rain-barrels and 80-gallon rotating compost bins. Baltimore Green Week in April gave people a chance to learn about sustainability, ecology and take away a free tree. While Baltimore may not yet offer city composting, in the mean time people can continue to reduce their personal waste-streams by recycling and composting at home.
Here are some more online resources to get you started:
The Indispensible WikiHow breaks down DIY composting http://www.wikihow.com/Compost
Cleaner Greener Baltimore : A City blog with information about recycling, updates on local government projects and sustainability tips.
Baltimore Green Map: The definitive online mapping resource for environmentally friendly business, culture and recreation. Additional green-maps for hundreds more cities can be found at http://www.opengreenmap.org/greenmap/.
B’more Green , The Sun’s environmental blog, keeps us up to date on environmental issues affecting Baltimore, Maryland and the world.
nice share
December 31, 2010 8:04 am