Hamburg Helper

E.U. has trash problem; Hamburg has trash solution

Posted at 10:16 AM on 09 Jun 2008

The European Union is running out of landfill space and faces a looming trash problem. All member nations have been directed to reduce landfill-bound trash 35 percent of 1995 levels by 2020, but many nations have slim chances of meeting that target; Italy, Spain, Greece, and Britain currently send more than 60 percent of their rubbish to landfills. Hopefully, E.U. trash laggards will look to the example of Hamburg, Germany: the city sent the majority of its garbage to landfills until 2000, when it decided to invest in top-notch recycling programs and low-polluting incinerators. Today, Hamburg produces less garbage than it did 10 years ago, despite population growth. The city recently agreed to a short-term deal to take 700 tons of garbage a day from Naples, Italy, where the streets are overflowing with refuse that the mafia-controlled trash industry has elected not to pick up.

source: The New York Times
see also, in Grist: Trash likely the source of dioxin tainting Italy's mozzarella

ADVERTISING POLICY

Comments: (2 comments)

You are not logged in. Thus, you cannot post a comment. If you have a Gristmill account, log in below. If you don't have a Gristmill account, well, by all means go make one! Meet you back here in five.

Stop Trashing the Climate

Susie Caplowe and Joy Towles Ezell of the Florida League of Conservation Voters organized a 'Stop Trashing the Climate' Day of Action in Tallahassee on June 5th.

TRASH IS BIG CLIMATE PROBLEM, NEW REPORT FINDS

A zero waste approach revealed as a top climate protection strategy.

Report released by Floridians Against Incinerators in Disguise, Florida League of Conservation Voters in coordination with the organizations that produced the report: Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), and Eco-Cycle

Tallahassee: Floridians Against Incinerators in Disguise, Florida League of Conservation Voters in coordination with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), and Eco-Cycle released a report today, Stop Trashing the Climate to step up the message that waste prevention, expanded recycling, reuse and composting is a more progressive tool in the climate crisis tool kit. Publication of timely report on United Nations World Environment Day offers tangible solutions to climate challenge, documenting that minimizing waste and increasing recycling and composting have the same climate protection impact as closing one-fifth of the nation's 417 coal-burning power plants. Coal combustion is the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.

"We are taking the opportunity to educate and motivate the public and public policy decision makers to change the way they deal with waste," stated Joy Towles Ezell, President of Floridians Against Incinerators in Disguise and FLCV. "The current "public policy" set by legislators and local governments for Florida over the past few years has set the course for more incinerators in disguise, under the cloak of waste to energy burners and the use of biomass and landfill/consumer waste. A backward direction instead of forward thinking."

"The report key findings show that "zero waste" movement reduces pollution, carbon dioxide emissions, and toxics, creates and sustains jobs. The time is now for "zero waste" strategy vs. ramping up incinerators in disguise, such as waste to energy plants, plasma, gasification, pyrolysis, and biomass burners," stated Ezell.

"Connect the dots... the polluters including the incinerators are busy polluting, the regulators are not regulating and the media and general public are asleep. What is the result? Rapid global warming and there is a significant chance that all of us will develop some type of cancer at some point in our lives, " stated Ronald Saff, M.D., Board Certified Allergy & Immunology. " "Incinerators in disguise" are being promoted throughout the state as a positive solution, clouding the truth. Stop Trashing the Climate shows that all types of incinerators are a detriment to the climate and the wrong direction for Florida. The "incinerators in disguise" are unproven technology, competing for taxpayer subsides, fly under the regulation radar, and could potentially pop up next to every landfill across this state."

Quote from Al Gore Quote from "Earth In The Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit" - Author Al Gore (Author of "An Inconvenient Truth"): "The latest scheme masquerading as a rational and responsible alternative to landfills is a nationwide - and worldwide - move to drastically increase the use of incineration... The principal consequence of incineration is thus the transporting of the community's garbage - in gaseous form, through the air - to neighboring communities, across state lines, and indeed, to the atmosphere of the entire globe, where it will linger for many years to come. In effect, we have discovered yet another group of powerless people upon whom we can dump the consequences of our own waste; those who live in the future and cannot hold us accountable."

Information including the report, executive summary, fact sheet, and U.S. press release is available online at: www.stoptrashingtheclimate.org.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------
To see Florida League of Conservation Voters President Joy Towles Ezell and allergy and asthma specialist Dr. Ron Saff at the Tallahassee press conference, click here:
http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/19574309.html

Below is some additional media coverage from the Stop Trashing the Climate day of action.

Florida Television coverage: The Zero Waste Approach, "Stop Trashing the Climate"

Hour long radio show broadcast across five U.S. states:
http://wpr.org/merens/index.cfm?strDirection=Prev&dte ...

Ecolocalizer:
http://ecolocalizer.com/2008/06/06/want-to-curb-global-wa ...

LA times blog: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/emeraldcity/2008/06/am-gr ...

World Press blog:
http://whygreen.wordpress.com/2008/06/06/stop-trashing-th ...

Florida article: Recycle, don't incinerate, enviros say

Grist blog: http://www.grist.org/news/2008/06/05/brief/index.html

Digg Blog Coverage:
Stop Trashing the Climate
Amazing new report that links trash to climate change. Includes recommendations on zero waste, incinerators, packaging regulations, composting and recycling.
Colorado story: http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2008/jun/06/recycling-fig ...

by Karen Orr at 11:59 AM on 09 Jun 2008

Trash does not exist

There is no such THING as TRASH. Trash is a human idea that is out of alignment with organic reality. Earth is a closed loop system, and if we have any hope of enjoying our Heavenly Body for another few billion years, then we have to stop gashing open the skin of the Earth and and pouring poison into the wound. One day soon, future humans will have to go through every landfill, item by item and consciously determine how to deal with the so-called trash we've buried.

by mycopablo at 11:06 AM on 10 Jun 2008

The comments of Grist users reflect the opinions of those individuals only, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of Grist, its staff, its board members, their psychotherapists, or their aestheticians. Got it?