I remember the first time I used one of those new forks to attack my Jester eggs. The 100-percent biodegradable forks are made of some sort of biomass mash, according to the signs placed around the cafeteria that remind me not to worry about their environmental impact as I throw them away.
These forks, along with the spoons, knives, plates and bowls that debuted on campus sometime last year are part of a growing trend The New York Times called the “zero-waste philosophy.” Other steps some cities and organizations are taking include collecting organic waste curbside in residential areas for composting and requiring residents to recycle just about anything that can be.
The impetus for such movements is easy to find — landfills are smelly, expensive and contribute to global warming, and perhaps more importantly, we’re running out of places to put them.
The New York Times lists fellow progressive cities Seattle and San Francisco as the forerunners of this movement. Missing from any mention in the article is Austin, and with good reason. The city government’s “Austin Zero Waste” page lists a lot of lofty goals and links to letters of support, but the heading “City Resolutions and Ordinances” is notably empty.
It’s time for Austin to move forward with these plans to reduce waste. Not only will we regain some of our progressive street cred, but a rapidly growing area like Central Texas has even less space for landfills. Corporations have begun to demonstrate that such policies can even save organizations money, which should help the city get some of the major industrial polluters on board to implement waste-reduction policies. High-tech companies like Hewlett-Packard, Xerox and Epson have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars while reducing waste, according to the Zero Waste Alliance.
The city needs to get started soon. Many of the steps listed in the draft recommendations for the Austin Zero Waste Plan (found on the city’s Web site) will require years to implement or are only first steps. For example, the plan includes “investigat[ing] and develop[ing] needed legal authority to require businesses and institutions in Texas to recycle food scraps,” a laudable step in the process that should be started now if it is to make any progress toward reducing waste in the next decade.
As the city gets its act together, there are steps we as individuals can take to reduce our landfill contributions. The Environmental Protection Agency’s most recent figures estimate that we each create 4.6 pounds of trash per day, and more than half of that ends up in landfills or is incinerated. (While burning trash avoids the landfill space problem, it still contributes to greenhouse gas levels and can release toxic chemicals into the surrounding environment.) None of this is rocket science — most of the “handy tips to reduce waste” that you’ll find can be summed up through a simple commandment: Consider the packaging. As in, think about all the bottles, boxes and bags you go through in a simple trip to H-E-B.
One application of this rule is that kegs are the superior option, at least when compared to buying a comparable quantity of Natty Light in cans.
Counts is a Plan II and history senior.
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