Christie Todd Whitman, who was appointed to head the EPA under George W. Bush, says just because you're leading the EPA, that doesn't mean you get to
choose who staffs it. (Photo courtesy of the EPA)
The big environmental agencies of
the government will soon have new leadership.
Rebecca Williams reports those agency leaders
might not have as much control as you’d think:
Transcript
The big environmental agencies of
the government will soon have new leadership.
Rebecca Williams reports those agency leaders
might not have as much control as you’d think:
President-elect Barack Obama is putting together his Cabinet and appointing
agency leaders.
One former Cabinet-level official says it’s great working with the President,
but you don’t always have as much power as you’d like.
Christine Todd Whitman was appointed by George W. Bush to run the
Environmental Protection Agency.
She says just because you’re leading the EPA, that doesn’t mean you get to
choose who staffs it.
“You have recommendation ability. Obviously the Administration always
has those must-hires. People they want to put in, people they feel they owe
positions to, people they think have good backgrounds.”
She says when she was in charge there was tension between the EPA and the
White House.
Critics of the Bush White House say political appointees have interfered
with scientific findings. They’re hoping that changes with the Obama
Administration.
Reporter Dustin Dwyer found all the ingredients for his Thanksgiving dinner within 100 miles of his house, including the turkey (poor thing). (Photo by Dustin Dwyer)
Turkey farmer Christine Roperti continues to farm near Detroit despite growing development pressures. (Photo by Dustin Dwyer)
Thanksgiving is about family, friends, and ridiculous amounts of food. But the food we buy can have a big impact on the environment. And a lot more people are starting to look for local ingredients to put in their meals. One movement encourages people to get all their food from within 100 miles of their home. Dustin Dwyer tried to find out how practical that could be for his Thanksgiving feast:
Transcript
Thanksgiving is about family, friends, and ridiculous amounts of food. But the food we buy can have a big impact on the environment. And a lot more people are starting to look for local ingredients to put in their meals. One movement encourages people to get all their food from within 100 miles of their home. Dustin Dwyer tried to find out how practical that could be for his Thanksgiving feast:
I like to look at labels on my food. I don’t care so much about the nutritional info, I just want to know where it came from.
But there’s a problem with that. Even if I know where something is packaged, I still have no idea where the actual ingredients come from. I mean, where the heck do they make partially hydrogenated soybean oil?
I have no idea. And so, for one meal, for the most important meal of the year, I decided to try to get all my food, and all the ingredients in my food, from within 100 miles of my apartment in Southeast Michigan.
If you’re impressed by my ingenious and creative idea, don’t be. I stole it from someone else. Alisa Smith and her partner James MacKinnon were on a 100 mile diet for a year, and they’re writing a book about it. I called up Alisa for some help.
Dwyer: “So my wife and I are going to do the 100 mile Thanksgiving, and I want to ask some advice.”
Smith: “Oh, great! For doing a single meal you picked a very good time to do it because it’s the harvest bounty, so that makes life a lot easier.”
I’m thinking, excellent, this could be a piece of cake. But I’m worried about a few tough ingredients, such as salt. Alisa says salt is a problem for a lot of people.
“I think in the end, you probably will find that salt isn’t available. And not being able t o make it yourself you might just say ‘okay salt is going to be an exception for us.'”
Ok, fine, but I still wanted to make as few exceptions as possible. I’ve got to have a challenge here, somehow.
That said, our menu would be simple: just turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and pumpkin pie. Turkey turned out to be easy.
“Roperti’s Turkey Farm.”
Christine Roperti has been living on her family’s turkey farm in suburban Detroit all her life. Farms like this one are getting crowded out more and more by suburban sprawl. There’s even a brand new subdivision next door to Christine’s place. There have been offers for her land too.
“Yeah, but I don’t want to go anywhere. I like the farm, and like raising my turkeys.”
I liked knowing that Christine actually enjoys this, and cares about it. It made me feel good. And that’s important, because I was also paying a lot more for her turkey than the store-bought stuff.
Anyway, I was flying high, and things were going really well. My list of exceptions was firming up, and it was mostly spices: salt plus all the spices for the pumpkin pie.
Then, while I was bragging at work about how I’d be able to get almost everything but salt for my local dinner, someone reminded me that there are actually salt mines under the city of Detroit.
Like a good journalist I looked into it, and ended up on the most absurd shopping trip of my life.
“Okay I’m headed over the Ambassador Bridge, going from Detroit to Windsor, Ontario. They do have salt mines in Detroit, but they don’t sell that salt as food salt in the US, they only sell road salt. So in order to get food salt that’s made within a hundred miles of my house, I have to go to Canada.”
Because of some trade regulation I don’t understand, table salt from this mine can’t be commercially shipped into the US. So I ended up in a city I barely know, looking for a grocery store. I went into the first, and then the second without finding the right brand of salt. Then an hour or so later, in the third store…
“Finally! Windsor salt.”
So, I wasted a lot of fuel putting this dinner together. It’s probably still an improvement over what the Sierra Club says is an average two thousand miles of driving that goes into each ingredient for my usual dinner.
But here’s the thing: if all this local stuff is available, I think I should be able to get it at the grocery store down the street. I should probably let them know that, and let them know I’m willing to pay more for it. I mean, that’s better than driving to Canada for salt, anyway.
But making that happen would take a lot more effort, a lot more voting with my pocketbook, and a lot more than just checking labels.
Reporter Dustin Dwyer found all the ingredients for his Thanksgiving dinner within 100 miles of his house, including the turkey (poor thing). (Photo by Dustin Dwyer)
Turkey farmer Christine Roperti continues to farm near Detroit despite growing development pressures. (Photo by Dustin Dwyer)
Thanksgiving is about family, friends, and ridiculous amounts of food. But the food we buy can have a big impact on the environment, and a lot more people are starting to look for local ingredients to put in their meals. One movement encourages people to get all their food from within 100 miles of their home. Dustin Dwyer tried to find out how practical that could be for his Thanksgiving feast:
Transcript
Thanksgiving is about family, friends, and ridiculous amounts of food. But the food we buy can have a big impact on the environment. And a lot more people are starting to look for local ingredients to put in their meals. One movement encourages people to get all their food from within 100 miles of their home. Dustin Dwyer tried to find out how practical that could be for his Thanksgiving feast:
I like to look at labels on my food. I don’t care so much about the nutritional info, I just want to know where it came from.
But there’s a problem with that. Even if I know where something is packaged, I still have no idea where the actual ingredients come from. I mean, where the heck do they make partially hydrogenated soybean oil?
I have no idea. And so, for one meal, for the most important meal of the year, I decided to try to get all my food, and all the ingredients in my food, from within 100 miles of my apartment in Southeast Michigan.
If you’re impressed by my ingenious and creative idea, don’t be. I stole it from someone else. Alisa Smith and her partner James MacKinnon were on a 100 mile diet for a year, and they’re writing a book about it. I called up Alisa for some help.
Dwyer: “So my wife and I are going to do the 100 mile Thanksgiving, and I want to ask some advice.”
Smith: “Oh, great! For doing a single meal you picked a very good time to do it because it’s the harvest bounty, so that makes life a lot easier.”
I’m thinking, excellent, this could be a piece of cake. But I’m worried about a few tough ingredients, such as salt. Alisa says salt is a problem for a lot of people.
“I think in the end, you probably will find that salt isn’t available. And not being able t o make it yourself you might just say ‘okay salt is going to be an exception for us.'”
Ok, fine, but I still wanted to make as few exceptions as possible. I’ve got to have a challenge here, somehow.
That said, our menu would be simple: just turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and pumpkin pie. Turkey turned out to be easy.
“Roperti’s Turkey Farm.”
Christine Roperti has been living on her family’s turkey farm in suburban Detroit all her life. Farms like this one are getting crowded out more and more by suburban sprawl. There’s even a brand new subdivision next door to Christine’s place. There have been offers for her land too.
“Yeah, but I don’t want to go anywhere. I like the farm, and like raising my turkeys.”
I liked knowing that Christine actually enjoys this, and cares about it. It made me feel good. And that’s important, because I was also paying a lot more for her turkey than the store-bought stuff.
Anyway, I was flying high, and things were going really well. My list of exceptions was firming up, and it was mostly spices: salt plus all the spices for the pumpkin pie.
Then, while I was bragging at work about how I’d be able to get almost everything but salt for my local dinner, someone reminded me that there are actually salt mines under the city of Detroit.
Like a good journalist I looked into it, and ended up on the most absurd shopping trip of my life.
“Okay I’m headed over the Ambassador Bridge, going from Detroit to Windsor, Ontario. They do have salt mines in Detroit, but they don’t sell that salt as food salt in the US, they only sell road salt. So in order to get food salt that’s made within a hundred miles of my house, I have to go to Canada.”
Because of some trade regulation I don’t understand, table salt from this mine can’t be commercially shipped into the US. So I ended up in a city I barely know, looking for a grocery store. I went into the first, and then the second without finding the right brand of salt. Then an hour or so later, in the third store…
“Finally! Windsor salt.”
So, I wasted a lot of fuel putting this dinner together. It’s probably still an improvement over what the Sierra Club says is an average two thousand miles of driving that goes into each ingredient for my usual dinner.
But here’s the thing: if all this local stuff is available, I think I should be able to get it at the grocery store down the street. I should probably let them know that, and let them know I’m willing to pay more for it. I mean, that’s better than driving to Canada for salt, anyway.
But making that happen would take a lot more effort, a lot more voting with my pocketbook, and a lot more than just checking labels.
Many people do not know what to do with old computers and
equipment, so they end up in the trash.
Electronic waste can potentially contain harmful chemicals like
lead, mercury, and cadmium. Recycling computers and other electronics is a
way to help the environment.
If you bought a new computer over the holidays, there are plenty of places to drop off your household’s old computer. But to prevent more of the old monitors, laptops and other items from winding up in landfills, some Midwest states are looking to make sure computer makers get involved in recycling their products. One of the few manufacturers that already helps re-use old computer parts is Texas-based Dell, Incorporated. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach went to a Dell-sponsored recycling center and has this
report:
Transcript
If you bought a new computer over the holidays, there are plenty of
places to drop off your household’s old computer, but to prevent more
of the old monitors, laptops and other items from winding up in
landfills, some Midwest states are looking to make sure computer
makers get involved in recycling their products. One of the few
manufacturers that already helps re-use old computer parts is
Texas-based Dell, Incorporated. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Chuck Quirmbach went to a Dell-sponsored recycling center and has this
report:
About a year ago, Dell helped set up and publicize a computer
recycling plant at a Goodwill Industries facility in Dell’s home city
of Austin.
(Sound of clunking)
Goodwill employees and volunteers sort through the hundreds of
boxes of computers and computer parts that are dropped off – at no
charge to the consumer – at the site. Newer computers are set aside
for repairs, and hard drive memories are erased. Older computers go
to a bench where workers like Paul take apart (or demanufacture)
them.
“I’m taking apart all the useable parts. Motherboard, power sources,
cards, ports, metal goes into bins, plastic goes into bins for
recycling and what not.”
(Sound of ambience switch)
Goodwill sells the reusable parts at its retail store elsewhere in the
building. Used LCD monitors, for example, go for as low as twenty
dollars.
Manager Christine Banks says some of the equipment is under
a 30-day Goodwill warranty. Other parts can be exchanged if the
customer isn’t satisfied. Banks says Goodwill is happy this computer-
recycling program makes a profit.
“Our operation does. However, there are 7 or 8 other Goodwills
throughout the country that do this that barely break even. We’re just
fortunate we have higher tech donations, a pool of employees with
more technology, it’s very tricky.”
Some states charge high disposal costs for unwanted computer parts,
which can contain potentially harmful chemicals. Those high costs can
make it difficult for a recycling program to get off the ground, but
environmental groups say the fast-growing pile of circuit boards,
monitors, and plastic parts can leach poisons like lead, mercury, and
cadmium into the environment.
They say small-scale projects like the one in Austin have to be part of a
broader effort to keep electronic waste out of the nation’s landfills. That
effort could include government mandates forcing manufacturers to
safely dispose of old products.
Robin Schneider is with the Austin office of the National Computer
Takeback Campaign.
“So, to really deal with the environmental problems of millions of
pounds of toxins, we’re gonna need something bigger than this. This is a
piece of it…and gonna need lot of pieces of it.”
Schneider says she’s encouraged that some Midwest states are
looking into manufacturer takeback programs. She acknowledges that
recycling may drive up the cost of new computers, but she also says
manufacturers may start redesigning computers so that it’s more
profitable for the companies to take them back.
Christie Todd Whitman, who was appointed to head the EPA under George W. Bush, says just because you're leading the EPA, that doesn't mean you get to choose who staffs it. (Photo courtesy of the EPA)
