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: http://www.stoptrashingtheclimate.org.

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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 ...