RE: [greenyes] Spring Report (zero waste and happiness)

["Patty Bates-Ballard" <pattyballard@no.address>]

Thanks for the update! It was encouraging.

 

-Patty
  
Patty Bates-Ballard 
Public Relations Director
EnviroGLAS Products, Inc.
214-373-1787

patty@no.address 
www.enviroglasproducts.com <http://www.enviroglasproducts.com/> 

 

"Treat the Earth well. It was not given to us by our parents; it was loaned
to us by our children."  -Traditional

  _____  

From: RicAnthony@no.address [mailto:RicAnthony@no.address] 
Sent: Saturday, June 25, 2005 6:32 PM
To: crra_members@no.address; greenyes@no.address; zwia@no.address;
gaia-members@no.address
Cc: zerowaste_sd@no.address
Subject: [greenyes] Spring Report (zero waste and happiness) 

 

Richard Anthony

Recycle Scene June 2005

 

Spring Report

 

As I look forward to the July 10-13, 2005 California Resource Recovery
Association Annual conference at the downtown Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel
(www.crra.com <http://www.crra.com/> ), I think about some of the things I
have learned while attending Recycling and Zero Waste conferences this
spring in Beijing, China; New York City; Coventry, England; Waterville,
Vermont; and Halifax, Nova Scotia.  

 

The Beijing event actually happened in January and really was the planning
committee for the program for the R05 (www.R05.org <http://www.r05.org/> )
conference in Beijing September 25, 2005.  We asked the co sponsors, the
Chinese Academy of Science, to let us add a couple zero waste workshops to
the technical program.  The closed circle concept is popular in China.

 

Last year at the Community Recycling Network (CRN) conference in London, I
spoke about zero waste, this year I attended because my company is helping a
local NGO plan and build a reuse park.  Sometimes you make great friends at
these events.  What motivates Suffolk CONNECT is the opportunity to do Good.
As expressed at the CRN conference by the keynote speakers from the Friends
of the Earth and the Member of the European Parliament, ". global warming
and climate change are real threats.. sustainability means ending
incineration and landfill ..working for zero waste. " 

 

At PACE University in lower Manhattan, New York City, the Grassroots
Recycling Network (www.grrm.org)  held their second zero waste action work
shop.  Peter Montague of RACHELs' Environmental and Health News and spokes
person for the precautionary principle and environmental impacts called
for". producer responsibility and product redesign.zero waste as the goal.
Our sponsors Hugo Neu (a metals recycler) Aveda (a cosmetic manufacturer)
and Ecocycle (a recycling company) supported the workshop as a means to
develop community leadership in initiating zero waste programs.

 

The New England Resource Recovery Association (NERRA) held their event in
the Vermont Mountains.  The fact that most of the incinerators that were
built in the 1980ies are up for new contracts and the Yankee spirit of self
reliance, filled the zero waste communities' workshop with transfer station
and citizens advisory committee representatives.  To them zero waste is
savings.  I also learned that mountain biking in the rain can be quite
thrilling

 

The Nova Scotia event combined happiness with sustainability, wellness,
education and governance.  This conference on gross national happiness was
held in Bhutan last year, the home of the Dali Lama.  Key Bhutan government
officials and a large delegation attended this event at St Francis Xavier
University near Halifax Nova Scotia.  Bhutan has declared happiness a
national objective.  Among other things, environmental quality has been
declared by the government linked to happiness.  I spoke in a pre conference
workshop on zero waste and spoke and moderated a sustainability workshop on
resource management in the new millennium with talks about sustainable city
planning and building in India, living off the grid in Canada, and rural
solar education in India. The work shop participants concluded that limits
were important.

 

Bringing it home at the San Diego Citizens advisory committee where we are
working to getting organics out of the landfill, I suggested that a zero
waste system for organics that composts and uses the material for making
agricultural soil amendments may be the best way to creating the most
happiness in San Diego County on this issue.  The committee seemed to like
the idea.  

 

See you at CRRA in July.

Rick Anthony

6/05