RE: [greenyes] RE : [greenyes] any laws requiring public tours of landfills?

["Eric Lombardi" <eric@no.address>]

Mario,

There is a fact about the Rocky Mountain States that most people don't
realize.  Most of our "municipalities" aren't customers of any landfill
because they have NO ROLE in the local waste industry.  We call it the "free
for all" system and it is 100% private free market.  The really different
part is that most local governments don't even contract out for collections
of trash... when you move to my town you have to open the telephone yellow
pages and hire your own trash hauler to come to your house.  Jerry Powell
who publishes Resource Recycling magazine once told us that he thinks we are
in the 10% group in the USA where waste and recycling is totally market
driven.  The end result is that the Rockies have the lowest landfill tip
fees and the lowest recycling rates in America... hmmm, do ya think there's
a link?  There are of course a few exceptions ... for example, here in
Boulder we've achieved a residential diversion rate of nearly 60%... but the
circumstances are unique here (for example, Eco-Cycle, sometimes called "the
third political party in town", is about to celebrate 30 year anniversary).

Anyway, I just wanted to share that little bit of reality that we deal with
out here in the Wild West.


Eric Lombardi
Executive Director
Eco-Cycle Inc
303-444-6634
www.ecocycle.org
 
 ?Anything that changes your values, changes your behavior?
George Sheehan.
 

-----Original Message-----
From: m.laquerre@no.address
[mailto:m.laquerre@no.address] 
Sent: Friday, October 07, 2005 11:08 AM
To: eric@no.address; greenyes@no.address
Subject: [greenyes] RE : [greenyes] any laws requiring public tours of
landfills?

Hi Éric,

If yours municipalities are customers of that landfill, why not ask them to
included in their contract the obligation of "Open doors" to anyone asking
to visit the operation ?...

Mario Laquerre
Coordonnateur
Secteur municipal
RECYC-QUÉBEC


-----Message d'origine-----
De : Eric Lombardi [mailto:eric@no.address] 
Envoyé : 7 octobre, 2005 12:19
À : greenyes@no.address
Objet : Re: [greenyes] any laws requiring public tours of landfills?

Hi Toni, Wayne, and all others who have responded, (I love this email
community!!),

The situation is this.  Eco-Cycle has been running a huge School Recycling
Program for over 15 years, and we have a program called the Follow The Waste
Stream Tour that is very popular with our local teachers.  We take busloads
of kids to the landfill, then the recycling center, then a local grocery
store to teach them how to make choices while shopping.  Last year we took
900 kids and adults to the landfill.

Over the last five years, Eco-Cycle has really turned up the volume on  "the
problems with landfills" as a community advocate, but we are NOT allowed to
be political in our school programs.  It's all science based, or else we'd
be booted.

Now we're involved in a local landfill expansion fight, and that has proven
to be the last straw for our local landfills, all of whom are privately
owned.  We got shut out last week while a yellow school bus was on the way
there!  I have been successful in getting the landfill to reverse their
decision because I was ready to go public and had enlisted a State
Legislator and the Local County Commissioner to join me... it would have
been a big public media mess for them, so we've been able to resolve it
quietly this time.  But I see the trend here in my backyard, and across the
nation ... I think the landfill industry is going to try to pull the curtain
closed on public scrutiny of their activities for fear that the USA will go
the route of the EU and start squeezing their future into a smaller role.

So, I don't know how we do it, but I like what Toni Stein sent me about
First Amendment Rights related to "community" issues, and since landfills,
both public and private, have impacts OFF their sites and must be regulated
and inspected by public officials, then maybe we all have the right to
inspect what our inspectors are inspecting?

My goal is to keep the kids going to the landfill because they love it and
they are shocked by it ... and that helps recycling.


Eric Lombardi
Executive Director
Eco-Cycle
Boulder, CO
303-444-6634
www.ecocycle.org

 


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http://www.recyc-quebec.gouv.qc.ca