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Hi Ric ~
I am not sure what you are really asking me,
about whether I would use a landfill or incinerator if I had the political
will.
But, let me say that both the population and
the political leaders here are very supportive of green measures. The city that
I live in (Madison, WI) has had the longest running curbside collection program
of newspapers in the country, for example, starting with a test in 1967. We have
had mandatory recycling since the 1970's, have banned many products from
landfills, have a very successful Madison Stuff Exchange, and Household
Hazardous Clean Sweep program, we mandate that retailers of tires, lead-acid
batteries, fluorescents and mercury thermostats take them back from their
customers, have banned the sale of mercury thermometers, etc. etc.
I would not exclude any options from the
list of management choices. We examine the environmental impact of the
alternatives -- using environmental economic and environmental valuation studies
from around the world as they might apply to our area -- not a blanket
statement that any given option is totally off the table.
I like a systems analysis approach. When I
was in grad school back in the early 70's, I took a course in this, and learned
about techniquest for optimizing systems. One of my projects was for the
optimizattion of collection routes for recycling, using the Chinese postman
problem method. It is one of the few text books that I have saved and still use
these approaches, while also making use of the power that today's computers
offer, such as Solver in Excel. I am glad that you too use this tool.
John
In a message dated 10/31/2007 7:50:56 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
Reindl@no.address writes:I don't think that there is any
"baseline". All alternatives ought to have their total costs included -- both
financial costs (including subsidies) and their environmental costs, a la
Pigou, who we have discussed on this list in the
past.
HI John;
Maybe "baseline "was not the right word for my
thought.
I like the sound of sustainable resource management
but I use a zero waste systems analysis to design my programs.
Would you use a landfill and /or
incinerator if you had the political will to redesign your County
resource management program?
Rick
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