Thursday, December 4, 2008

Not In My Back Yard!

In Cherokee County, South Carolina, a familiar, but sad fight is heating up. The fight is over a proposed new landfill. The company that is building and maintaining the new landfill, Waste Management is proposing a site that does a lot of environmentally friendly things and the battle is not over them, but the basic concept that folks don't want to live near a landfill.

This battle screams to me of a reason to recycle that doesn't require a person to care if "Mother" Earth gets pampered. At the Council meeting where Waste Management presented the details of their plan, one facet of this landfill commanded my attention. The landfill will cover 75 acres when it opens for business with an projected expansion to 300 acres. What a huge increase in loss of land to trash! The property that is being purchased spans 1,500 acres. Will it stop at 300 acres?
Here is a concrete example of how recycling can have a direct impact. The more items recycled, the less landfill space needed. I know personally, that since I started recycling, I have reduced my trash placed in the dumpster by over half. Now, there are probably 6-8 other residents here where I live that consistently recycle. Add their "trash savings" to mine and we have a tiny spot in the land around the landfill that doesn't need to be introduced to trash. Now, imagine the land space that would go unused if all 54 town homes in my community consistently recycled? Here is a very definite thing that the average joe can do that will have a obvious positive effect.

And you folks in Cherokee County, fill up those recycling bins if you want to avoid a new land fill, or at least keep it small.

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