[GreenYes] City of Boulder going for ZW!

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

Greetings all,

 

Last fall, it was Boulder County that went for Zero Waste.  Tomorrow night,
it will be the City of Boulder.   After a long interview with the reporter,
you will see that once again they used a quote that was "downstream"
oriented, probably because the reporter could relate to the idea.   I had
talked at length about "upstream" issues and how they are really the
defining characteristic of why ZW goes beyond recycling and is really the
new idea for the 21st Century.   Zing. right over his head.   Just tells me
we have work to do in "framing" the upstream side of the ZW future.

 

Eric

 

City heading toward zero 

Boulder council takes up waste reduction 

By Ryan Morgan, Camera Staff Writer
May 1, 2006 

Tuesday night, the Boulder City Council is expected to commit itself to zip,
nada, nothing. 

Or "zero waste," rather. 

The council's agenda includes a resolution that says the city "hereby
encourages the pursuit of zero waste as a long-term goal in order to
eliminate waste and pollution in the manufacture, use, storage and recycling
of materials." 

The resolution follows the City Council's approval of a waste-reduction
master plan that lays out a road map the city can take to get close to zero
waste. The plan would keep as much as 85 percent of Boulder's waste out of
landfills, up from about 50 percent now. 

Eric Lombardi, head of Boulder's Eco-Cycle, said he is - not surprisingly -
ecstatic about the direction Boulder is taking. 

"My take on the situation is that basically the master plan for waste
reduction is a historic new approach to giving the community greater
recycling services, which they are always asking for and always using," he
said. "This is a new way for the city to create a vehicle for moving forward
progressively." 

The plan calls on the city to expand its recycling programs, find and fill
in gaps in recycling services and team up with private companies and
nonprofits for waste diversion. It also says the city will get new recycling
and waste-reduction infrastructure off the ground - and then require its use
once it's "convenient and economical." 

City Councilman Richard Polk said the resolution commits Boulder to making
sure it keeps waste prevention in the fore as its leaders make policy. 

"It's a long-range goal, and it just means that we're not going to make any
decisions about any issues at all without considering that we have that
goal," he said. 

The plan lays out different goals the city can accomplish with different
amounts of money. The money the city spends now on trash reduction should
get Boulder to 60 percent waste diversion by 2007, the plan says. 

With another $332,000 between now and 2012, diversion could be bumped up to
70 percent. And spending $678,000 above today's amount could get the city to
85 percent by 2017, according to the plan. 

A higher trash tax is mentioned in the plan as one of the ways to pay for
the program. The city could also consider a "pay-as-you-throw" system,
charging people based on the size of their trash containers. 

Polk said he thinks people who live in Boulder will be willing to support a
program that keeps trash out of landfills. 

"I think there's an overarching view that people can buck up and do their
share," he said. 

The University of Colorado's Environmental Center on Friday also announced a
plan to make the campus "zero waste," as well as "carbon neutral," by 2025. 

Contact Camera Staff Writer Ryan Morgan at (303) 473-1333 or
morganr@no.address 

Copyright 2006, DailyCamera. All Rights Reserved.

 

 



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