There was a lot to do recently about a pretty big hike in the fee for garbage pick up as Allied Waste Services added curbside recycling services for County residents that live outside the Concord and Kannapolis city limits.
Allied Waste added the recycling service for the unincorporated portions of the county at the specific request of the Cabarrus County Commission.
I'm one of the customers who now has to pay 43% more for my garbage pick up. While I love finally being able to recycle, I think something is not quite right.
My family of 3 members puts out a full recycling bin once a week, next to a big 95 gallon rolling cart with exactly one garbage bag in it. One of my neighbors down the street, who lives alone, doesn't recycle at all and puts her big rolling cart overflowing with garbage bags (usually the lid can't be closed) on the same curb.
The problem I have is that we both pay the exact same amount for our garbage collection.
Apparently nobody on the County Commission has ever heard of the internationally well known and accepted "the polluter pays principle".
Besides the "good feeling" you get from doing something positive for the environment, why should anyone recycle when it takes a lot more time and effort and your neighbor, who just pollutes away, only has to pay the same amount you do?
In a letter I received from Allied Waste Services, which was sent out after they received numerous complaints from customers about the raise in fees, they say that one of the main reasons they added the curbside recycling was that "Cabarrus County wishes to encourage more residents to recycle in order to better protect our environment".
Can someone explain to me how you are encouraging residents to recycle by having them pay more and ask them to invest more time and effort at the same time? Basically you're asking people to work harder for something they have to pay more for.
What's even worse is that people who say they can't afford to pay 43% more for their garbage pick up will now start dumping their trash everywhere or just burning it in their yard. Why not tell people they won't have to pay more if they participate in the recycling program? Let the people, who are too lazy to get of their butts and just want to dump all their trash in one pile, pick up the slack for everyone who does care about the environment.
Also, I don't see anyone talking about the fact that all that recycled material is worth money. I'm sure companies pay Allied Waste Services for their cans, paper and glass, because all that stuff is raw material for an industrial process.
So I'm pretty sure that Allied Waste is getting extra money from 2 ends now. We pay more for their services while at the same time providing them with more material they can sell to other companies.
Why not include the proceeds from the collected recyclable material in to consideration when Allied Waste Services rates are determined? One good example for this I found in the State of Washington where they require this.
Once again logic seems missing in Cabarrus County government.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Why doesn't it pay to recycle in Cabarrus County?
Monday, October 1, 2007
Putting people before money for a change.
Concord City Council members voted unanimously Monday to halt construction on a drag strip that's being built at the Lowe's Motor Speedway complex, according to the Charlotte Observer.
A surprising move since proponents claim the drag strip would bring high-paying jobs and millions of dollars in needed tax revenues to Concord.
I applaud the City Council members for choosing the health of people above the almighty dollar for once.
Speedway owner Bruton "I can do whatever I want" Smith in August announced plans to build the drag strip, saying then that racing would begin next spring. The land for the drag strip backs up to neighborhoods and businesses, including a hotel and convention center.
Smith Apparently thinks he's the king of the land around here and started grading his land about a week ago, without even applying for the required permits. The council's vote Monday changed the zoning on Smith's property to bar drag strips.
Last week, Smith said city officials "weren't doing enough" to back motor sports and threatened legal action if the council intervened in his project. If you've ever driven anywhere near Lowe's Motor Speedway during race week in May or October, you know Mr. Smith is full of it when he says that Concord isn't doing enough.
Residents can already see construction for the drag strip from their backyards.
The National Hot Rod Association, the organization that sanctions the nation's top drag racing series, has an "inaugural" race event scheduled for Sept 11-14 2008, according to insiders this would be on the new drag strip in Concord.
Not surprisingly, people who live in a subdivision that's not even a mile away from the proposed site aren't too happy to see this circus arrive in their backyards, the noise pollution being their main worry. Apparently Speedway Motorsports representatives don't want to provide data to show how loud noise from the drag strip would be.
If you want to hear for yourself, watch the following video after you turn up the speakers on your computer:
This is not the first time Bruton Smith thinks he can do whatever he wants to. In 2004 Mr. Smith wanted to build a new Parking lot for the Motor Speedway. The land he wanted to do this on was within the Mecklenburg County limits. To get Charlotte's approval to build a parking lot, Lowe's Motor Speedway agreed to protect hundreds of trees. Three months later, it bulldozed almost all of them.
Let's hope the City of Concord can stop him this time before he does any irreparable damage.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
The myth of putting corn in your tank.
This past February the world community of scientists published a report on global warming under the umbrella of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). That report concluded that global warming is “unequivocal” and human activity is the main driver, “very likely” causing most of the rise in temperatures since 1950.
While the rest of the world moves on and is rapidly trying to find solutions for this global environmental crisis, a few republicans pretend nothing is going on. One of them, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), even thinks global warming is caused by farting.
So with most people being worried about global warming, except for a few republicans who also still believe that Earth is flat, folks are looking for solutions to be a little more earth and climate friendly. A lot of them seem to think that one solution for environmentally friendly fuel is corn. They couldn't be more wrong.
Let's look at a few common misconceptions about corn-based ethanol:
1. There's plenty of corn around
If every vehicle in the United States were powered by ethanol, only one of eight would be drivable. Already, 20 percent of the nation's corn goes to ethanol production. Replacing just one-eighth of U.S. gasoline consumption would require the country's entire corn crop. Even if we planted every single acre of farmland in the US full of corn for ethanol, we still wouldn't have enough to provide all the fuel we use in the USA.
2. Corn fuel reduces greenhouse emissions
Corn-based ethanol's contribution to fighting global warming is marginal at best. Corn-based Ethanol burns cleaner than gasoline, but its production relies heavily on diesel tractors and fertilizers made from petroleum, to the tune of some 140 gallons of oil per acre. Once you have produced the corn it is also very energy intensive to distill the ethanol out of it. A recent survey by the University of California at Berkeley found that corn-based ethanol cuts greenhouse-gas emissions by, at best, 13 percent over gasoline.
3. Corn fuel boosts your engine's performance
Ethanol does boost octane, and thereby engine performance, but supplies less energy per gallon than gasoline. While it is somewhat less expensive than gas, its lower energy content means you get fewer miles per gallon. Until the price of E85 drops to about 72 percent of gas, consumers won't see any savings.
Ethanol fuel can be part of a solution, but not when it's corn based. Ethanol distilled out of sugarcane and switch grass for example is preferable because it takes much less energy to distill and you don't need to use a mountain of pesticides to grow it. Ethanol distilled from switch grass and plant waste is know as "cellulosic ethanol". Unfortunately a lot of research remains to be done before cellulosic ethanol will be ready for prime time.
If you really want to help the environment and curb global warming (and you should), it is much better to first of all try using your car less and look into buying a hybrid car or at least a car that gets high mileage. Until we have completely clean cars of course.
The local spin on this story:
On May 9th 2006, Robin Hayes held a press conference at a gas station outside of his district in Charlotte, NC and filled his SUV with E85 (= corn-based ethanol) while at the same time announcing he would introduce a bill to offer tax incentives for businesses that develop facilities to sell E85. Hayes was obviously oblivious to the fact that corn based-ethanol is not the solution to our environmental problems nor is it a sustainable solution for energy independence. As with most of the bills Robin introduces (and anything else he does) it went nowhere and the bill never became law.
