 "Photo: Carson Werner/The Daily Texan")
Concerned citizens, local business owners and environmental activists gathered at the United States Art Authority on Monday to plan changes in Austin’s current waste disposal system.
In 2005, the City Council approved the Zero Waste Strategic Plan, which calls for the elimination all solid waste in Austin through recycling and reuse by 2040.
For the activists of Austin Zero Waste Alliance, the 2040 date is not soon enough.
“We need to get the ball rolling on this,” said Karly Dixon, president of the Austin Zero Waste Alliance, a chapter of the Central Texas Zero Waste Alliance.
Under the plan, the amount of garbage created for landfills in Austin is estimated at about 1 million tons per year.
The organization hopes to greatly reduce this number by lobbying officials, promoting clean Austin businesses and spreading awareness of the growing waste problem and its impact on the environment.
“It’s not just the state’s responsibility,” Dixon said. “The private sector needs to take up their responsibility and create zero waste initiatives.”
The group focuses on ending the practice of incinerating or disposing of waste in landfills.
“All waste is just a resource that nobody has figured out how to properly use,” said Austin resident and meeting attendee Mike Polacheck.
The forum allowed members to discuss plans to make the reuse of waste the primary method of ending the reliance on landfills and to bring back a sustainable environmental policy regarding garbage.
“If it’s not a resource, then it is just waste,” Polacheck said. “The only thing you can do is bury it, burn it or throw it away, and we are running out of places to do that.”
Dixon stressed the need for people to compost, limiting the amount of organics thrown into Austin landfills. He said 50 percent of landfills are organic material.
Local business owner Roberto Espinosa attended the meeting hoping to further reduce the amount of waste produced by his restaurant, Taco Deli.
“We first and foremost wanted to reduce our footprint,” Espinosa said.
Espinosa began to gather the restaurant’s organic waste, which includes thousands of eggshells, unused vegetables and other organics, to be collected by locals who may use it for compost.
He said the practice cuts down on waste put in the landfill by about 250 to 350 pounds weekly per restaurant.
“Myself and most of my staff recycle at home,” Espinosa said. “We basically wanted to take it to our place of business.”
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