The Paradox of Cleaning
The past two weekends, I spent some time cleaning up trash that was littering public spaces: one in downtown Glens Falls and the other on a road maintained by the Adirondack Runners in Queensbury. While it was uplifting to see the spaces free of debris, it dawned on me the paradox of cleaning in today’s internationally connected world.
Our hundreds of trash bags, filled with cigarette butts, squished soda cans, paper and plastic bags, will just end up in a landfill somewhere. We are just moving trash from one place to another, hoping that it will disintegrate and disappear. But, obviously depending on the material, it might take decades. In the meantime, it causes issues with the environment and the air, wherever it ends up in its final resting place.
There are options, though, as I began to search how to better manage this growing problem. I learned about a process known as “landfill gas-to-energy” that utilizes methane, a potent greenhouse gas emitted during the anaerobic decomposition of organic waste, by neutralizing and capturing the byproduct and turning it into a renewable energy source. A non-profit group, Project Drawdown, describes the process of converting an engineered, closed landfill into a biogas energy-generation machine. While there are costs associated with these projects, the eventual savings, as well as the reduction in harmful byproducts into the atmosphere, will be felt for many years.
Another alternative is better waste sorting, by separating cardboard from glass to plastic. The Zero Waste Warren County Project stated that selling flattened cardboard to papermills not only generates some income for towns but reduces costs of hauling it away. The great thing about this solution is that, with a coordinated effort by local transfer stations, it is implemented with a reduced overhead. That nonprofit is also in the public eye with their composting collection booth at the Glens Falls Farmer’s Market every Saturday. The website, Leave No Trace, offers a good starting guide if you are unsure what materials can be composted. If you are a daily coffee drinker, then coffee grounds are perfect.
Composting, for those unfamiliar, is process of recycling your organic waste into something useful, by giving it an ideal environment in which to decompose and then utilizing the finished compost for gardening or other purposes. The Zero Waste Warren County Projects delivers compostable material to many places locally that process the material, which usually takes ninety days to become fertilizer. Adirondack Worm Farm is another business, based in Washington County, that offers curbside pickup of compostable material. They also utilize "vermicomposting", or the use of earthworms to convert organic waste into fertilizer.
Sorting recyclable materials, as outlined in the New York State’s Bottle Bill from 2009, is another option. There are long overdue updates to the law, however. Jade Eddy, owner of MT Returnables, has been on the frontlines for many years to persuade state lawmakers about the urgent need to help struggling bottle return centers. Given the changed economic conditions from 2009 to today, local bottle return centers struggle to keep afloat. Per the state guidelines, they are only provided 3.5¢ per container. That pittance is their only income for the labor, storage, and distribution of collected recyclable containers outlined in the law. As Jade Eddy has educated me, that is certainly not enough.
I volunteered my time last Thursday to help move thousands of containers from their storage to the pickup truck. Not only was it incredibly tiring, but it illuminated the disparity in cost of labor and income generated. If a bottle center were to hire someone at minimum wage for 40 hours (a typical work week), it would need to bring in and store over 17,000 containers every week just to break even on labor, not even counting electricity and rent for the building. That is not sustainable, and the bill needs to be updated to reflect the current economic conditions facing these small businesses.
Along with better management of our waste, we can reduce are need for single-use items, like switching to reusable shopping bags or plates and utensils, donate and buy used clothes, utilize refillable water bottles, and using teapots with loose leaf tea in diffusers. Project Drawdown as a table of solutions with many other options, from building better bicycle infrastructure to heat pumps.
The truth is that we need all the solutions, not just one, to build a better, cleaner, and more sustainable world. All it takes is each one of us to change how we approach our lives, utilizing our individual and collective efforts to promote the solutions outlined. And I believe we can do it, slowly but surely.
