This week’s discussion on the waste that we produce might have been the one that has resonated with me the most.  I feel that in the past few months of trying to leave class more in the know than before, this lesson has given me the most perspective on the environmental issues we encounter today.  While in previous lessons we have heard numbers in the tens of thousands of tons, the numbers related to garbage produced by the city and each borough have struck me as the most relevant to my life specifically.  I feel know that I have a better awareness of what exactly is happening around me, or even a better awareness of how I act.  I have always known that plastic bags from supermarkets accumulate and are harmful to the environment if overused, but only since this past Monday have I been conscious of my intake, and rejecting the store’s plastic bags.  The portion of the lecture devoted to Tullytown opened my eyes to the problems that us elitist New Yorkers have in regards to waste.  I have never considered the effects of the waste we produce, as I never see where the garbage goes, past the garbage trucks.  It is unfortunate that our waste is not our problem, because I feel that if we had the waste sites in our neighborhoods, for example on 91^st street, we would be significantly more conscious of our waste.  The sheer vastness of the quantities of waste we produce is not known to the average New Yorker, and I believe that if we were constantly reminded with transfer sites, it is likely that we would be more hesitant to throw away water bottles instead of recycle them, or even stop taking plastic bags from the supermarket.  I do not think that New Yorkers are against the environment, I just believe we need to be reminded that we are apart of the world outside of New York.  As for the citizens of Tullytown, as cynical and harsh as it sounds, it seems that they are actually benefitting from our trash.  In that I mean that there are many people in this country who suffer from being below the poverty line, and I believe that this relationship we have with Tullytown might actually be symbiotic.  Now I do not believe that it is fair to have to live next to a waste site, nor do I think anyone should have to be exposed to such health dangers.  However, there are people in this country who struggle to make ends meet, and while we have the luxury of choosing where we put our waste, others do not have any leftovers to waste.  As awful as it sounds, it seems that there are people in the country who would gladly take the money and bribes from our waste companies just so that they have the resources to keep their homes and feed their families.  Would it not be better to live next to garbage than to not live at all? These are the notions I am wrestling at the moment.

Reva McAulay

12.3.12

MHC 200

Weekly Response #13

It’s astonishing that 75% of New York City’s garbage is not residential.  I mean, yes, there is a lot of business and construction and what-not around, but that they create three times as much trash as New York’s 8 million residents is amazing.  Having garbage processed in-borough makes sense in terms of fairness, and not having garbage trucks driving all over the city wasting gas and creating traffic.  However, where it doesn’t necessarily make as much sense is in the case of Manhattan.  If the proposed facility works out that that’s great, but if they can’t find a suitable location, fairness is not enough of a reason to shove a waste transfer station where one won’t fit.  It might be fair to the borough as a whole, but not to the people living there which is what matters more.  If there is a site in another borough where the waste transfer station might effect far fewer people, that would be fair in a different way.  I’m still somewhat confused as to how one station on E 91^st St. is going to replace the 22 in Brooklyn where Manhattan’s waste is currently sent.

As for Tullytown, hopefully soon they won’t need to take our trash, although it seems they might miss it (or at least the money that comes with it).  Then again, the radioactive sludge might make up for it.  Hopefully New York will follow San Francisco’s lead and transition towards a zero-waste system.  They’re success is honestly greater than I would have expected possible, but luckily I see no reason why it should work there but not here.  That’s if the government decides to do it, and actually spend the money instead of half ass it.  Putting recycling cans next to every single trashcan would be a nice start.  An even better one would be recycling all plastic/metal/glass instead of the byzantine system we have now.  Adding a citywide composting program would be interesting since that does not seem to be a thing that is even on most people’s radar.  It might take a little while for people to get used to the idea, but it’s not that hard.  The good thing about all those changes is that they just cost money, they don’t bother people.              Fining people who don’t recycle might not go over so well, but they could frame it as a way to recoup some of the costs for the people who do recycle.  Banning non-recyclable products would be even harder (and if they can’t get that in San Francisco, what are the odds here?).  I still think charging for waste pick up would be a more palatable and more effective solution, although it would still be tricky.  Another idea would be subsidizing commercial recycling and/or taxing commercial waste disposal, seeing as that seems to be the majority of the problem.

The ads were great, hopefully we’ll get a chance to see the rest of them.  The government’s ads are usually pretty good but I can’t think of any really attention grabbing ones regarding anything environmentally conscious.  The ones about smoking and the amount of fat and sugar in energy drinks are certainly striking and everybody notices them, but the ones encouraging recycling and reducing you’re energy use are boring.  The ones you guys made are definitely much better; it’s too bad the city doesn’t put the same amount of creativity into theirs.  Showing people that kind of representation of how much garbage this city actually produces might make them think about where it goes and how they contribute to it.  And maybe that would cause more of a change in habits and actions than the bland banners that show how consumers can reduce their energy use.

There should be some sense of urgency to adopt a version of the zero waste policies that have been effectively implemented in San Francisco and Scotland. We, being New York City and the greatest city in the world, should have started are own zero waste policy a long time ago. We should be the model and not have to resort to modeling other cities and countries. There is a parallel here to the space race. We wanted to show our dominance as a nation by becoming supreme in space exploration. It was our duty as one of the world’s superpowers. Well now, it is our duty to set an example of zero waste leading to a more efficient society, rid of the garbage problem. So long, Tullytown!

Life would be so much better without the need for landfills and incinerators. We will no longer have to worry about how to get rid of our trash and the creation of new landfills and incinerators. Debates about where to place these things and who has to suffer for it will become irrelevant. If the Fresh Kills Landfill did not exist, Staten Island would be a much nicer place. Particularly in my early years, I would have enjoyed not having the rotting smell fill the air.

The zero waste policy in San Francisco includes the composting of food waste, mandatory recycling, and laws against items that cannot be recycled. These three features are all actually very realistic. Fertilizer is very essential and many New Yorkers would be very enthusiastic about food composting knowing it will help the growth of organic items. Mandatory recycling is extremely easy to make happen and there is no reason why it should not be happening now. The third item, making laws against items that cannot be recycled sounds initially like it would be difficult to make happen, but after reconsidering, companies are always involving and improving their products, so they could work around these laws.

I am not going to say I am mad as hell about all of these environmental problems and the lack of government help and inability of the government to take rapid action. I am not happy about it either though. I accept is as a way of life, but certain, easy things can be done to improve this like implementing a zero waste policy. Of course money is at the center of this. A lot of money is dependent on the trash we send to Tullytown. Tullytown probably relies on this money, and if their landfill becomes irrelevant, the town may fall apart. Maybe we can use the advertisements created by Jackie and Joe to increase awareness and our need for a zero waste policy. I feel like those advertisements have a chance at being very effective, so why not try it?

The situation in Treece and Picher is very unfortunate. I find almost comedic that with all our advancement in technology nowadays we have a ghost town. These towns were forced to evacuate because of the harmful pollutants, particularly lead in the area. This is a serious matter that should not have been neglected for so long. The EPA should be much quicker responding to serious health hazards like this where lives are at stake. We should from Treece and Picher so we can prevent future mistakes from happening.

With the visionary ideas of PlaNYC and what we’d recently learned of New York’s preventative water-pollution systems, I had higher expectations for the city’s new solid waste management system. This time, New York needs to follow the example of cities like San Francisco.

It seems that the real issues of waste management in New York have gotten bogged down in politics. I have to wonder how much thought was given to the idea of a “zero-waste” NYC when the city’s new solid waste management system was drawn up. Was the idea considered at all, or did the city government take it for granted that waste is a fact of city life? Instead of exporting garbage to Tarrytown to rot in a high-tech dump, the city could export fertilizer to farmers. Surely the idea could be successfully marketed to this organic-food loving city.

Personally, I find it hard to get “mad as hell”. I’m pretty stoic most of the time, and I don’t usually think of anger as a productive emotion. I’ve also become fairly desensitized over the years to social problems – except for a few special situations, like unfair treatment on an individual level, anger just isn’t my response to these situations. I generally think of this as a good thing, since anger clouds judgment and is generally unpleasant to experience or be around, but in cases of social justice anger might be called for. Besides being stoic, I’m also fairly passive. An angry version of me might feel more motivated to make change; I might be more emotionally engaged. Emotional engagement requires strong emotions virtually by definition.

The presentations we watched on Thursday tried to put a bit of emotional engagement into practice. The study on the towns of Treece and Pitcher presented an example of a community essentially destroyed by, and the EPA’s response to it. With the hazardous results of decades of mining surrounding the town, with a total cleanup cost that might potentially cost more than the monetary value of the homes and possessions there, evacuation may well have been the only conscionable solution. Regardless of individual free choice, a community that includes children has a responsibility to them to provide a safe environment to grow up in. With the developmental risks posed by exposure to lead and other metals, the EPA’s response seems particularly justified. The town stands as an example of the mistakes of the past, and the situations and hard choices we should do our best to avoid having to make in the future.

I have to wonder why only one couple refused every offer of reimbursement for evacuation. I don’t know the financial details of anyone who lived in Treece, but it seems unusual that only two people would be unable to move. It seems likely that they simply decided they were more happy staying where they were than picking and starting anew, which is and should be their choice.

Advertising is entirely based on emotional engagement, although feelings of envy and desire are usually the goal rather than anger or camaraderie. In the case presented by my classmates, however, the goal is to juxtapose the beautiful architecture of the city with the waste that surrounds its operation. I think the idea is clever. A possibly even more effective version might use a great number of unique images from across the city to form the mosaic, allowing more people to connect with scenes from their neighborhood and become engaged with the situation surrounding us.

The gravity of New York City’s daily waste cannot be told in its numbers only. To appreciate the full effect of the trash situation, one must delve into the implications that New York City’s trash has. That is, we must consider what this trash consists of, where this trash goes, and what happens to the trash after its exportation or deliverance elsewhere. When we consider these aspects of our trash and physically see our waste after it leaves our hands, then we realize our excessive nature as well as our destructive impacts on the Earth. These impacts and the prospect of running out of space to put the trash scare me the most and make even more urgent the need for change.

That Manhattan’s trash is shipped to Tullytown, Pennsylvania is quite disturbing because this fact means that we do not have room here in New York or must make great amendments to place our trash here. Our trash production rates, in my opinion, are bound to become worse if we do not make a change. If such does occur, we need to find more final destinations for our trash. What happens when we fill Tullytown until it overflows? We must find a new trash location, but then where would we go next? Space is limited and to begin shipping our trash further will cost more and be more unfavorable to the general public, the government, and companies. To find locations for transfer stations proves a difficulty now in New York City due to the ethical and health concerns of many people in the that area, although perhaps these people just do not want to see such unpleasant sights in their neighborhoods. Regardless, these sites are such huge issues that I see our only reasonable and environmentally ethical option is to find environmentally sustainable alternatives.

Achieving these environmentally sustainable goals seem impossible, but as I referred to in previous responses, we can be successful with small actions. As was spoke about in class, San Francisco is a great example of how we can manage and even reuse the waste we produce. For example, by creating composts for individual households, we can provide fertilizer for farms or produce as opposed to dumping our organic waste. Also, creating different waste compartments and organizing our waste in the way that San Francisco does makes reusing our trash easier.

The informed, including myself, need to spread these possibilities to others. The first portion of the ad campaign that we saw in class was brilliant and really did seem a valid way to raise awareness about New York’s trash. Joseph also touched upon that the issue is all about changing the way we are. We must adapt to the Earth and its natural tendencies, rather than try to create a new, environmentally unfavorable equilibrium. If changing the paper products we use, increasing our usage of solar power, and building edifices with sustainable material will achieve a proper equilibrium for Earth, then these actions are what we will have to carry out. We must change our habits now because, if we do not, we may end up in dire situations, such as having to leave our familiar homes and neighborhoods.

An example of such a situation is Treece, Kansas, which should no longer be livable due to the high amounts of lead and zinc present due to certain human activity. The entire town, besides one couple, was evacuated, many, if not all, for a monetary incentive. If we continue on with our wasteful and careless ways, then will we not end up in the same situation? The answer to me is that we will have to face similar situations.

I, or anyone else, with an inkling of passion for the environmental welfare can inform others as much as we want about the issues; sometimes, though, the problem arises that others do not want to listen to what we have to say. Many a times when I begin to talk about the environment and doing what we must to stabilize the Earth, especially concerning car fuel, my father does not want to hear much of what I have to say. Sure he listens but he does not always agree with me. My mother can be the same way at times it seems, especially after I explained how the increased levels of carbon dioxide and melting glaciers that contributed to Hurricane Sandy were very much due to the actions of humans.

The point I try to make here is that people will not want to hear out the environmental side of the issue, and rather care more about the economics of the issue and what they are socially comfortable with. Here, then, we see that many people need a huge paradigm shift because, if they do not care and do not lend their small actions to mend the issues, then we may reach similar fates as those of the people of Treece, Kansas.

Sherifa Baldeo