http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/business/energy-environment/23recycle.html?ref=science
I came across this article and found it to be some source of relief from Friedman's repeated rants on how unwilling people are to change their ways for the sake of the environment.
Although I understand there is not nearly enough being done to adjust people's consuming habits, in order for their to be any sort of modification, the level of convenience must first be expanded to make recycling and other green strategies more accessible to the public.
On campus there are recycling stations located outside dorms and there are some actually on every floor. It's sad to say, but a lot of students, including myself, will throw away a recyclable item because the trash can is closer than the recycling bin.
I've heard that there will be recycling bins available for students to use, and this is a step in the right direction. In order for humans to change their ways, their needs to be something worth modifying one's lifestyle, and the new strategy must be of some convenience.
Climate change provides the need for modification, but until there are more accessible avenues to exercise green strategies, recycling will continue to lack the attention it deserves.
However, it was refreshing to read from the Continental Airlines representative that many employees wanted to recycle, which help provide some of the initiative for the company to become more recyclable-friendly.
This is an excellent, but unfortunately rare example of recycling coming from the bottom up.
It will take similar efforts of airports, airline companies, and other forms of industry to make recycling more readily available for recycling to take precedent over the more convenient and time-tested practice of throwing stuff in the trash.
The article demonstrates that humans have it in them to change, but at the same time, it can be hard to muster the strength to change when it's so easy and almost natural to go about the standard routine, even if we're putting ourselves in harm's way.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Joe, your comment about accessibility is well taken, and those us on Student Senate understand that this problem is evident in our immediate community, which is why we've invested some of our resources to making sure recycling is easier on campus.
ReplyDeleteThis year, in cooperation with the Physical Plant, the Student Senate decided to add more recycling bins in the academic buildings because students, faculty and staff were simply not making the effort of carrying their plastic or glass bottles across campus where recycling bins could be found. The reason for this? Exactly what you were saying, in that students the Wartburg community, generally speaking, will not make an effort to recycle unless it's easy. Our plan places roughly 25-30 additional bins across campus in high-traffic areas which will be emptied by a group of students who will live in The Residence next year (all groups who live in The Residence need to have a service project of some kind).
Are people against recycling? Generally speaking, no. Will they put in more work necessary to recycle? No (or at least, not yet). This is why it is necessary to make sure the means are easily accessible, and perhaps these means will become more common throughout the country in the near future so it eventually becomes to the rule, not the exception.
Also, for those of who you have flown through Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, this may be familiar to you, but check out their neat recycling program:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.atlanta-airport.com/forms/airport/frmAirportInformation_EnvironmentRecyclingProgramOverview.aspx
There is an easy answer to this conundrum, and it calls for no government regulation -- no need for Student Government to spend student fees on recycling bins for every twenty-yard stretch that students may tread.
ReplyDeleteThe answer? Easy, just introduce market incentives. Increase the deposit on all recyclable containers -- say, from a nickel or a dime each, to two bucks -- and you'd get a number of groups (service trip groups, poorly-paid professors, unemployed graduates) organizing and competing to pick up the trash that lazy non-recyclers don't equate with cash.
Now I know there are those who say that government is the agent that decides deposits on cans and bottles. Yes, but Wartburg could add a deposit on all such containers that are sold here, and it could call it the "Glenn Beck/Bill O'Reilly leadership and service endowment excise gratuity." (You wouldn't have to pay it, but you'd not receive any grades or transcripts unless you "voluntarily complied.")
Plus, you could also take a page from the "cap and trade" idea by allowing consumers to purchase more than the required value of "deposits," and these, in turn, could be "sold" to the lazy students who want to skip the trash for cash and just litter their recyclables all over the place. There are indeed slothful cohorts among us; this will give them the freedom to escape the wrath of the Friedman no-fun types and enjoy to the fullest extent to freedom to dump whatever wherever they please. If you pay the dime, you can do dump all the time.
Now, since we're are on a roll here, we could also license student betting parlors such that readers of this comment could wager large sums of money -- or vehicles or cell phones or stocks and bonds -- on the condition of the person posting this comment. For example, someone could say, "Ten bucks says the poster is inebriated or high on controlled substances." There is a market for such wagers, not all that different from the market on credit-default swaps. So Friedman's fury at the impending doom of Amercums run amok can be converted into capitalist ingenuity: If we can't pass a carbon tax, we can privatize our way out of doomsday scenarios. Just gotta use a little imagination: Maybe in assigning housing next year the College could designate one of the residence halls -- say, Clinton Hall -- as the preferred home for garbage-lovers: slothful slobs too lazy to throw away trash. Who knows? It might boost enrollment as well as a market for the mud-monkeys!
There actually is an incentive for the students. The school spends a little over $35,000 every year on disposing trash. This fee is determined by the amount of trash that we throw away, and this service is paid by (through tuition and fees) students. So, if we throw away less, we spend less money on taking out the trash and hopefully see a reduction in student fees. The same goes for energy use in the residence halls. In fact, the idea was thrown around, at one point, to reduce room & board fees if we made a bigger push to make sure students were being more sustainable. So, there are incentives to students, it's just a matter of making them realize that being "green" actually has an impact on our environment and their pocketbooks.
ReplyDeleteNot to be cynical, Abhay, but I doubt we'd see a reduction in student fees if more students recycled. Right or wrong, this is the attitude shared by a lot of the student-body on campus. I'm also not sure how a reduction in room/board would be implemented to try to encourage students to be more sustainable. As Joe demonstrated, it's largely an attitude thing. Many students feel that, because they are paying what they perceive to be huge sums of money to attend this institution, they are entitled to do what they want. It's a problem that requires a change in attitude as well as action which is kind of the idea that Friedman was hitting over the head in his text.
ReplyDeletePlus, the money saved from paying for garbage disposal would probably be spent on paying off the debt.
ReplyDeleteStudents just don't seem to think of their individual actions equating to anything significant in the whole. At least in my experience. Students who continue to take twice as much as they need in the Mensa, leave trash in inopportune places- because "this is making a job for somebody else", or break the rules can't see their actions as a tragedy of the commons. They see it instead as a tragedy for the self- they had to pay X amount of money and they are going to continue with their wasteful comportment because they can.
Maybe that sounds pessimistic, but I think it is unfortunately the case for a good many people.