A recent piece in Fortune about garbage made me think about how change in the US on critical issues is increasingly playing out on the local level. The article, Seattle Shoots for Zero Waste, talks about how Seattle is striving to reduce the costs of garbage collection and disposal by increasing recycling. As the article lays out, Seattle recycles or composts 56% of its waste—better than the US average of 35%, but way below recycling star San Francisco, which clocks in at 80%, the highest in the nation. New York? An embarrassing 16%.
An even bigger point the article raises? Just how much garbage we Americans produce: 250 million tons a year, 2x the amount in 1970, with no signs of slowing down. Disposing of all this costs an estimated $7 billion a year. That’s a lot of money wasted on waste.
A recycling expert recently told me that future generations will probably look back at us and think we were idiots—wondering what we were thinking (or not) when we buried vast amounts of valuable things like aluminum and other metals underground. Think about that next time you toss a can or bottle.
Craig Bida
Originally published 11/17/2013
An even bigger point the article raises? Just how much garbage we Americans produce: 250 million tons a year, 2x the amount in 1970, with no signs of slowing down. Disposing of all this costs an estimated $7 billion a year. That’s a lot of money wasted on waste.
A recycling expert recently told me that future generations will probably look back at us and think we were idiots—wondering what we were thinking (or not) when we buried vast amounts of valuable things like aluminum and other metals underground. Think about that next time you toss a can or bottle.
Craig Bida
Originally published 11/17/2013