Mary Belle,
One thing I'd like to add is that many chemicals that make their way
into the water through the waste stream ARE NOT filterable. Many
particularly harmful compounds pass right through our city's water
treatment process, which means that we're getting a dose of those
chemicals in our drinking and bath water. This is because our systems
are lately focused on the elimination of bacteria, and many of the non-
filterable chemicals have come on the market since modern water
treatment processes were invented.
Your comment brings to mind a national campaign that you folks may
find of interest. There's a growing movement of people and
organizations across the country pushing to reform the laws which
govern the approval and use of toxic chemicals. They have organized
under the banner of "Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families".
Check out their website, what they're doing is very exciting:
www.saferchemicals.org
Sorry for the tangent. Hope everyone is doing well!
Ana
If your bread is stale, make bread pudding.
On Feb 20, 2010, at 3:22 AM, Southralcap(a)aol.com wrote:
Everyone,
I heard about the rolling recycle carts some time ago and am looking
forward to having one. A rolling cart will be much easier to get to
the curb than lugging the bin full of papers, plastic bottles cans,
etc. - at my age that is a challenge my back and I do not enjoy.
Currently it is wasteful to have a recycle truck come every week if
some people do little recycling. Once every two weeks to empty a
bin makes more sense. As for the size of the recycle cart, there
are options, just like those for our garbage carts. Remember,
before the City started a recycling program, we had to take our
recyclables to a few designated sites throughout the city - just as
we do now with telephone books. At future SWCAC meetings and in our
newsletter, I will be begging folks to recycle even more when they
get their rolling carts..
My biggest frustration is that people do not recycle every item they
can - that's what being "green" is about. I was lucky - my mother
taught me to recycle as a child many, many, many years ago. If
people had lived in Raleigh long enough, they would remember the
City's challenge to find enough land to expand our "garbage
mountain." The more stuff people can recycle, the less land Raleigh
will have to buy for a garbage dump when the present dump is full or
if they cannot find land, the garbage will have to be shipped
somewhere away from here at a much greater expense. Do not forget
some items that should be recycled are toxic to our water supplies.
Recycling saves additional expenses of purifying our drinking water,
too.
Leaving to our children and other family members land that is as
green as possible will be just as important as leaving them our home
and money. Please make a positive adjustment to this bin-to-cart
change.
Thanks for reading my email. I do not want to step on people's
toes, but I so strongly believe in recycling.
Mary Belle Pate
In a message dated 2/17/2010 12:40:47 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, linda(a)lindawatson.com
writes:
I was surprised and disappointed to see in the paper today that
Raleigh
will be using big new plastic recycling containers and decreasing the
number of city employees (no layoffs, but a net loss of jobs).
We had a presentation about recycling at a recent Glenwood CAC
meeting,
but I don't recall any mention of this new plan. I took a
survey that a friend forwarded to me, but otherwise didn't know about
the upcoming changes until seeing the article today. The survey
mentioned a tax increase to pay for the new program, but the article
today didn't mention one.
Was the RCAC informed of this change? I know the people in the
recycling
department work hard and have great intentions, but I would have liked
to have a more public discussion of the pros and cons of this program
before seeing it approved, including RCAC notification.
For example:
* What is the environmental impact of throwing away the bins we
already
have and buying new ones?
* Where will the new ones come from? A Raleigh firm would be good, a
Chinese firm would be very bad.
* Is it a good use of tax money to replace jobs with big plastic bins
and fancy trucks?
* Should we be striving to increase the volume of material recycled or
to decrease the amount of overall waste?
Sincerely yours,
Linda Watson
Glenwood CAC chair
_______________________________________________
RCAC mailing list
RCAC(a)eastraleigh.org
http://www.eastraleigh.org/mailman/listinfo/rcac
_______________________________________________
RCAC mailing list
RCAC(a)eastraleigh.org
http://www.eastraleigh.org/mailman/listinfo/rcac