Comments on: Wasting Energy All the Way Around

By: Shelley Robbins

Shelley Robbins — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:36:51 +0000

Tammy – I just saw this one. Thank you!!! In addition to recycling, we have got to start paying attention to consumption in the first place (and packaging choices). It warms my landfill-policy heart to see attention being paid here. We had no problem fighting a landfill that would have imported trash. But what will happen when it is our own?

By: tammy

tammy — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 21:00:36 +0000

did y’all see this about Milliken on the news the other day?

http://www2.wspa.com/spa/lifestyles/go_green_save_green/article/upstate_business_turns_green_zero_landfill_waste/18006/

From the piece:
“Recycling projects are really everyone’s job in the company so everyone is looking out for those opportunities,” explains Cassidy Carlile. He is the director of environmental services for Milliken.

Most people know the Milliken building as the place to hang by the lake and feed the ducks. But the employees inside are feeling kind of green.

“Everything we do we first try to eliminate waste, that’s the best objective, especially for a manufacturing environment…we try to eliminate the waste we create or generate.”

Carlile says Roger Milliken started being environmentally conscious many years ago. “He did start a very long time ago before it was the vogue thing to go green or do things that were right for the environment. He established that very early on.”

The company recycles 100% of its paper and uses re-circulating cooling ponds for the air conditioner. “Total company water reduction has been about 50 percent over the last 18 years through hundreds of thousands of different projects,” says Carlile.

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Rock on Roger Milliken. Can you imagine how cool it would be to get the City and County governments to adopt similar sustainability projects? It would be a start.

And NED I loveeeeeeee the pay-to-throw concept. THAT is a great incentive. Think there might ever be a chance??? Maybe that’s something we can advocate for…

By: Ned Barrett

Ned Barrett — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 20:13:15 +0000

I’ll just say that I’ve pushed the pay-to-throw concept in the City. We charge for water by usage; we should pay for landfill space in the same way. I shouldn’t be charged the same landfill fee when I recycle and compost and cut down on how much packaging I use that my neighbor who throws everything away pays. It would be a fairly easy program to implement–mount scales on the arms that pick up our trash bins, recording how much each household throws away–again, think of water meters. The new recycling bins does very little (does it do anything?) to encourage recycling.

By: cw

cw — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:01:29 +0000

I live in SPartanburg City which offers curbside recycling. However, so many people don’t do it. It is free and kinda fun to see how much you truly can eliminate from the landfill. Some states require recycling, and if you don’t then you pay a fine. San Francisco just passed a law for mandatory compost bins for scrap food.

Maybe we should get tough in SC. Impose a fine for city residents who don’t recycle. I know the city doesn’t hardly make a profit on the recycling but that is due to only 10% participation.
If it were mandatory, perhaps we could make money on it and divert that tax money savings to more exciting expenditures (like parks).

When I forget my cloth shopping bag, I save those plastic bags for trash. Since, I recycle most things I only contribute one small grocery bag a week to the landfill. I only roll my cart to the curb once a month(and it isn’t even full). Every week I put out my recycle bin.

I encourage city residents to recycle… It is not difficult.

By: sylvie

sylvie — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 03:18:38 +0000

Wow I just blogged about this very topic and did a major rant on a forum I frequent. However I have to take the conference participants to task on putting their money where their mouth is. The energy footprint they are leaving just attending this supposed climate change conference is simply staggering. When a city runs out of limos to ferry people to and from the conference and buses set aside for that conference are left largely ignored, I have to just shake my head in sad wonder.

You are right, we as individuals need to be the ones to step up to the plate. there is much we can do, simple steps, long proven things that work. These things, such as using less lighting at night can save a great deal of energy, especially in unused rooms or to light up outdoors. Do we really need all those porch, landscaping and street lights on at night, all night? for example. Then you get to commercial buildings and you really see lights needlessly left on…why?

By: William Hamilton

William Hamilton — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:57:18 +0000

We use reusable bags at home for the store, which are made out of recycled pop bottles. We try to recycle a lot of things. Printer cartridges, egg cartons. My son works to expand plastics recycling at Wando High School.

Its a big effort.

There is a huge area for improvement.