[GreenYes] Waste Stats

[Bob and Camille Armantrout <bobandcamille@yahoo.com>]

I took a look at these 1999 statistics for residential waste and was
amazed to see that 72% can be composted!  There hasn't been a Solid
Waste Characterization Study since 1994 on Maui, but that study showed
70% of land filled solid waste to be compostible.  Meanwhile, we're
fertilizing our crops with chemicals instead of compost.  Go figure!

Which brings me to this quote from a story in the Nov-Dec issue of UTNE
(reprinted from The Brooklyn Rail) titled, “The Hidden Life of Garbage
– Why our waste keeps growing” by Heather Rogers and Christian Parenti:

“Materially, garbage might be the end product of consumerism, but
politically and economically, it is the lifeblood of capitalism.  Ever
more consumption is what keeps our economic system moving.”

“Capitalist growth and profitability depend as much on the destruction
of wealth as on the production of it.  While salvaging the value
contained in a discarded but perfectly useable desk is rational from an
environmental and social point of view, it is irrational and not useful
for the furniture industry, which must produce and sell more and more
desks in order to thrive.  Ultimately, the environmental crisis, of
which garbage is just a subset, is inseparable from the logic of our
whole economic system.”

Camille Armantrout
Maui Recycling Service

From: "Gauthier, Tara" <TGauthie@ciwmb.ca.gov>
Subject: RE: [GreenYes] waste stats

Look at Profiles on the California Integrated Waste Management Board
website, to give you some general statistics.
http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/profiles/Juris/
<http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov/profiles/Juris/> 

- -----Original Message-----
From: JudiGregry@aol.com [mailto:JudiGregry@aol.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 28, 2002 8:31 PM
To: greenyes@grrn.org
Subject: [GreenYes] waste stats


I'm looking for some general statistic on waste generation.  If you 
have
information on any of the following or know of links please let me know

(in
Los Angeles region if possible).  Thanks! 


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