Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Maytide Skies

Maytide Skies, the view from my deck. Wish I could upload the sounds of the bees.

Just got back from driving on a 6th grade field trip to the dump, actually the recycling part of the dump. Where in a few months they will be using the methane collected from the decomposing matter to generate electricity to sell for big $$ I love it! Instead of going into the atmosphere as an addition to the greenhouse gas problem, it will get used up and converted into a usable power source.

But the bad news was that the landfill is filling up fast, maybe it will last 20 more years and is located right on the California central coast city of Watsonville, in primo strawberry growing land. So that the land use, coastal commission and county supervisors have blocked expanding the landfill. So pretty soon, our county will not have a landfill? What the hell will we do with our garbage? Float it around on barges out in Monterey Bay? Hell-oooo people, think ahead...

But the takeaway message for the kids and parents was to use aluminum, then glass, and finally last choice plastic for food containers. Aluminum is easiest to recycle and there is a big market for recycled aluminum, glass is pretty easy too, but plastic takes more processing to re-use, and there isn't much of an end-use market for it...yet. So they recycle it, but can't sell it or even GIVE it to anyone! I think where the state and federal government need to get involved more is on encouraging the end user market by requiring recycled materials to be used when at all possible in new buildings, or furniture for government use, give tax breaks on using recycled plastics in consumer products construction.

I love recycling stuff in making my art, and have been in two fine art exhibits that were entirely composed of recycled materials. Hey, just think, everytime you reuse a Tyvek envelope from your mail to make it into something cool, you're keeping it out of the landfill!


Deb R said...

I love when you say you wish you could upload the sound of the bees. I keep wishing I could upload the fragrance of the flowers in my yard. :-)

Karoda said...

On the blog "In The Middens", she posted how she has eliminated most of her garbage. Did you catch that entry?

Dara said...

I love recycling, too! We have a recycling plant in town, looks like it's straight from the seventies when we used to talk about ecology with passion. I love going down there with my bags of newspaper, junk mail, cans, and bottles, knowing I'm making a difference in my little corner of the planet.