promote recycling & challenge an incinerator as the solution
0 views
Skip to first unread message
Caroline Eader
Jul 1, 2009, 11:01:25 AM7/1/09
to GreenYes
Folks, make yourself some recycling hats and you will get your message in the local news! Promote recycling and following the EPA's hierarchy. Landfills and incineration are last.
Do not accept the incinerator industry saying "its the community's responsibility" to remove recyclable material from the waste stream. How is that to happen when incinerators are subsidized with a community's financial resources, resources which should be going to reducing, reusing and recycling and composting first.
Demand the incinerator operators guarantee all recyclables to be removed prior to incineration. How many incinerator operators will amend their contracts to do so? None.
Ted Micheals, the president of the incinerator industry's trade organization will tell you they won't put any such contractual requirements in the agreements. And that is clearly why recycling and incineration are not compatible.
Caroline
www.WasteNotFrederick.org
Caroline Eader (center) and Ellis Burruss (left) of Waste Not Frederick
talk with people at U.S. Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett's Go Green Energy
Conference at the Great Frederick Fairgrounds on Monday.
Do not accept the incinerator industry saying "its the community's responsibility" to remove recyclable material from the waste stream. How is that to happen when incinerators are subsidized with a community's financial resources, resources which should be going to reducing, reusing and recycling and composting first.
Demand the incinerator operators guarantee all recyclables to be removed prior to incineration. How many incinerator operators will amend their contracts to do so? None.
Ted Micheals, the president of the incinerator industry's trade organization will tell you they won't put any such contractual requirements in the agreements. And that is clearly why recycling and incineration are not compatible.
Caroline
www.WasteNotFrederick.org
Eco-friendly fixes
Frederick energy conference teaches cheap methods to ‘go green'
by David Koontz | Special to The Gazette
Tom Fedor/The Gazette
A clean lint trap and a full refrigerator have little in common to most people.
But Damien Edwards sees money and energy savings in both.
Edwards, founder of Noble House Building Services in Brunswick, explained Monday that a clogged lint trap causes a clothes dryer to use more energy than if it were clean. And a partially full refrigerator uses more power than one well stocked.
Edwards was one of the panelists at the Go Green Energy Conference held at the Frederick Fair Grounds on Monday, and offered tips on how people can make their homes more energy efficient.
"Get into the mindset that ‘I'm going to be an energy saver,'" Edwards said. "Adjusting your habits is the No. 1 way to start saving money."
Hosted by U.S. Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett, the event was free for guests, providing free entry and parking, and free for exhibitors, charging no fee for booth space.
Bartlett (R-Dist. 6) of Buckeystown, hosted the event to raise awareness of the numerous methods through which residents of Frederick County and neighboring counties can save money and get onboard with the green movement.
Dozens of exhibitors came out to showcase their product, business, program and initiative all centered on the theme of energy efficiency and going green.
Booths featured information on a variety of topics, ranging from weatherization assistance programs to using home solar panels and wind turbines to offset energy bills. Some booths had visual aids to demonstrate the heat-reducing capabilities of their certain window glass, or the amount of insulation provided by new foam insulators versus standard insulators.
Caroline Eader was heading the booth for Waste Not Frederick, a volunteer-based organization that aims to educate people about reusable, recyclable and compostable materials and how to dispose of them in an environmentally sound and economically responsible way. She was mainly concerned with advertising alternatives to the proposed Frederick County incinerator.
"It's like gastric bypass surgery without doing our diet and exercise first," she said. "Let's reduce, reuse, recycle more before we start talking about [an incinerator] in our neighborhood."
Frederick City Mayor W. Jeff Holtzinger (R) spoke at the conference, saying, "It's amazing the number of common sense things you can do to improve your environmental impact."
Holtzinger (R) outlined several things the city was doing along with the green movement, including working with the county to improve recycling and cleaning local stream water.
Bartlett then spoke about how important it is for residents to be eco-friendly. "I was green before it was cool to be green," he said. "Thirty years ago I was building solar-powered houses here in Frederick."
Bartlett outlined three groups of people who are invested in the green movement.
The first group is made up of those concerned with CO2 emissions, climate change and the toxins that contribute to air pollution.
The second group is comprised of those people concerned with U.S. national security. According to Bartlett, the United States owns only 2 percent of the world's known oil reserves yet uses 25 percent of the world's oil, importing two-thirds of it in from other countries.
The people in the third group are those concerned with the fact that oil is finite, and will one day run out.
Bartlett said that the answer for these three concerns is to use less fossil fuels, and more renewable fuels, calling it the "same solution to different problems."
The conference also hosted several panel discussions with local experts and business owners. The panel discussions concerned homeowners, business owners and farmers, and covered topics such as tips on cutting energy costs, how to maximize government and tax incentives to go green and the future of green collar jobs.
E-mail David Koontz at dko...@gazette.net.
Low-cost, energy-saving tips
Adjust your habits to save energy. Do laundry only with a full load; turn down the thermostat in the winter and raise it in the summer.
Improve lighting efficiency by using compact fluorescent light bulbs, which use less energy and produce less heat.
Maintain appliance efficiency by cleaning them. Just like a car needs routine maintenance, so do household appliances to function efficiently.
Install low-flow shower heads to conserve water, reducing the amount that needs to be heated.
Provide summer shade by keeping blinds closed on the south- and west-facing windows. Planting trees shading those sides of houses also cuts energy bills over the long run.
Get your home an energy audit, which will analyze the energy efficiency of your house and recommend measures to improve it.
Source: Noble House Building Services in Brunswick.
But Damien Edwards sees money and energy savings in both.
Edwards, founder of Noble House Building Services in Brunswick, explained Monday that a clogged lint trap causes a clothes dryer to use more energy than if it were clean. And a partially full refrigerator uses more power than one well stocked.
Edwards was one of the panelists at the Go Green Energy Conference held at the Frederick Fair Grounds on Monday, and offered tips on how people can make their homes more energy efficient.
"Get into the mindset that ‘I'm going to be an energy saver,'" Edwards said. "Adjusting your habits is the No. 1 way to start saving money."
Hosted by U.S. Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett, the event was free for guests, providing free entry and parking, and free for exhibitors, charging no fee for booth space.
Bartlett (R-Dist. 6) of Buckeystown, hosted the event to raise awareness of the numerous methods through which residents of Frederick County and neighboring counties can save money and get onboard with the green movement.
Dozens of exhibitors came out to showcase their product, business, program and initiative all centered on the theme of energy efficiency and going green.
Booths featured information on a variety of topics, ranging from weatherization assistance programs to using home solar panels and wind turbines to offset energy bills. Some booths had visual aids to demonstrate the heat-reducing capabilities of their certain window glass, or the amount of insulation provided by new foam insulators versus standard insulators.
Caroline Eader was heading the booth for Waste Not Frederick, a volunteer-based organization that aims to educate people about reusable, recyclable and compostable materials and how to dispose of them in an environmentally sound and economically responsible way. She was mainly concerned with advertising alternatives to the proposed Frederick County incinerator.
"It's like gastric bypass surgery without doing our diet and exercise first," she said. "Let's reduce, reuse, recycle more before we start talking about [an incinerator] in our neighborhood."
Frederick City Mayor W. Jeff Holtzinger (R) spoke at the conference, saying, "It's amazing the number of common sense things you can do to improve your environmental impact."
Holtzinger (R) outlined several things the city was doing along with the green movement, including working with the county to improve recycling and cleaning local stream water.
Bartlett then spoke about how important it is for residents to be eco-friendly. "I was green before it was cool to be green," he said. "Thirty years ago I was building solar-powered houses here in Frederick."
Bartlett outlined three groups of people who are invested in the green movement.
The first group is made up of those concerned with CO2 emissions, climate change and the toxins that contribute to air pollution.
The second group is comprised of those people concerned with U.S. national security. According to Bartlett, the United States owns only 2 percent of the world's known oil reserves yet uses 25 percent of the world's oil, importing two-thirds of it in from other countries.
The people in the third group are those concerned with the fact that oil is finite, and will one day run out.
Bartlett said that the answer for these three concerns is to use less fossil fuels, and more renewable fuels, calling it the "same solution to different problems."
The conference also hosted several panel discussions with local experts and business owners. The panel discussions concerned homeowners, business owners and farmers, and covered topics such as tips on cutting energy costs, how to maximize government and tax incentives to go green and the future of green collar jobs.
E-mail David Koontz at dko...@gazette.net.
Low-cost, energy-saving tips
Adjust your habits to save energy. Do laundry only with a full load; turn down the thermostat in the winter and raise it in the summer.
Improve lighting efficiency by using compact fluorescent light bulbs, which use less energy and produce less heat.
Maintain appliance efficiency by cleaning them. Just like a car needs routine maintenance, so do household appliances to function efficiently.
Install low-flow shower heads to conserve water, reducing the amount that needs to be heated.
Provide summer shade by keeping blinds closed on the south- and west-facing windows. Planting trees shading those sides of houses also cuts energy bills over the long run.
Get your home an energy audit, which will analyze the energy efficiency of your house and recommend measures to improve it.
Source: Noble House Building Services in Brunswick.
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages