Alda Yuan
Professor Alexandratos
MHC 200
Week 13 Response
After hearing about the success of the zero-waste programs in San Francisco and Scotland, Chairman Ard’s claim that the city needs a modern approach to the waste management seems strangely prescient. Of course, he likely meant it as a simple rhetorical device and was using it as an easy way to deflect responsibility for thinking about the hard issues. That is not to say that his argument about waste in residential areas is invalid. The usual protest in response to that is there is often no choice to locating them in residential areas. But the zero-waste program offers a clear alternative.
Were New York City to adopt this program, it would obviously have to adapt the specifics. But it makes sense from a number of perspectives. First and foremost in many official’s minds will be the monetary effects. With respect to that, a zero waste program will seriously reduce, if not eliminate entirely the money that the city needs to spend on waste management. Of course an initial investment might be needed but the city has proved itself capable of looking ahead in the past. It would also have health benefits, not only to people who live near these waste collection sites but to those who eat the food grown using the compost created rather than chemical fertilizers. And the benefits to the environment are of course huge. Here finally, is a real large scale implementation of the cradle to cradle principle. It is all well and good when applied to individual chemicals or even individual industrial processes but these are, in the end, only a small portion of the whole. If we can affect the way people in our largest cities consume and dispose, we create a ripple effect that cannot be halted. Companies, in an effort to cater to consumers in these areas will develop alternate methods of production and would have no reason not to extend them once they realize that they can be economically as well as environmentally efficient.
With regards to the Treece issue, I think the best way to turn it in into something with the semblance of a silver lining is to learn from it. It should be held up and touted as the example of what happens when businesses are not held responsible for the consequences of their actions. It is also a point against those who claim that coal mining is still the direction we should take because jobs are more important than scenic surroundings. But that is a false and misleading dichotomy. Here we see that destroying the earth neither provided permanent jobs nor prosperity. Instead, the lack of forward thinking has caused the destruction of an entire town.
If no other benefits stem from this situation, at the very least, it should lend weight to the imposition of more stringent regulations. For instance, a good idea might be for force companies who wish to engage in activities like mining to pay into a fund expressly reserved for the cleanup and revitalization of such areas. To encourage more cradle-to-cradle practices, credits could be awarded for sustainable practices that the companies enact above and beyond what the regulations require. The political force needed for such changes is of course astronomical and necessitates far more awareness than the average American now possesses. This is where smart ad campaigns like the one exhibited today can become very useful. They go directly to the people, forcing them to confront the hard truths everyone is aware of but prefers to ignore.
