In their submission, the environment groups charge that oil extraction processes leach contaminants into both surface and groundwater in the Athabasca watershed. (Photo courtesy of Aude CC-2.0)
You might think about imported oil and Saudi Arabia or Venezuela come to mind. But, the single biggest source of imported oil to the U.S. comes from Canada. And half of that comes from a dirty form of oil called tar sands oil. Lester Graham reports environmentalists are trying to use NAFTA to get restrictions on tar sands oil:
Transcript
You might think about imported oil and Saudi Arabia or Venezuela come to mind. But, the single biggest source of imported oil to the U.S. comes from Canada. And half of that comes from a dirty form of oil called tar sands oil. Lester Graham reports environmentalists are trying to use NAFTA to get restrictions on tar sands oil.
Environmental groups say extracting tar sands oil causes a lot of water pollution. Matt Price is with Environmental Defence Canada:
“We keep on presenting the evidence to the government, and they just sort of keep on ignoring it which is why we filed this citizens’ complaint.”
They’ve filed the complaint under the North American Free Trade Agreement. The say oil companies in Canada are not complying with Canadian environmental laws and that might be a violation of the NAFTA treaty. So, his group and others are taking the fight to Canada’s trading partners.
Anita Gardner (right) and Shirley Ellington of the Discovery Center of Cleveland rummage through boxes at ZeroLandfill.
(Photo by Julie Grant)
People can take unused design samples for free.
(Photo by Julie Grant)
Children at the Discovery Center of Cleveland use scraps from ZeroLandfill to learn to sew quilts. (Photo courtesy of Anita Gardner)
Furniture stores and architectural
firms get a lot of samples – of fabric,
tiles, and carpet. Those samples can
pile up. Usually, they get thrown in
the trash. But, in some cities, they
are starting to make unused design
samples available to artists and art
teachers. Julie Grant has more:
Transcript
Furniture stores and architectural
firms get a lot of samples – of fabric,
tiles, and carpet. Those samples can
pile up. Usually, they get thrown in
the trash. But, in some cities, they
are starting to make unused design
samples available to artists and art
teachers. Julie Grant has more:
(sound of Anita looking thru boxes)
Anita Gardner is rummaging through boxes of old tile samples. They’re still attached to those three-fold sample books you’d see at a design store. But she’s imagining what else the kids at her community center might make with them.
“You have to see it first, sometimes. Sometimes it doesn’t come. It comes later and then you go, ‘we can do this and we can do that.’”
Gardner is at a special event called ZeroLandfill. Furniture stores, architects and design centers can drop off unwanted materials, and people like Gardner can take whatever they want – for free.
“This has been a godsend to us, because we really don’t have a lot of money to spend on arts and crafts.”
Last year, she found a lot of unused fabric – so she taught the kids at her center to sew quilts.
“And a lot of children in our community have never even threaded a needle. Now they’re learning to use sewing machines. They’re learning to piece all types of fabric together. They’re learning patterns and designs. They have no idea, they’re actually learning math.”
And in inner city neighborhoods, where kids can go to bed cold in the winter, Gardner is especially pleased that she’s started a quilt-making trend. It also warms the hearts of the folks who organize ZeroLandfill.
David Fox helps to run these events in Cleveland.
“A lot of samples end up just being discontinued and then, where does this all go? And it ends up being thrown out a lot of time. Or – they just have so much stuff they just keep hoarding and hoarding and hoarding.”
About five years ago, some folks at architecture and design firms around Cleveland, as well as a carpet company, all started talking about what to do with their unwanted material. They were spending a lot of money to send it to the landfill. So they held a one-day drop-off for companies to recycle it.
Fox says they soon realized their trash might be treasure to artists and art teachers.
“It was a program that started as a one-day thing. Firms were able to come and drop stuff off. But it has turned into a yearly process and now it’s even gone to other cities.”
Fox says they’ve already saved more than 100 tons of material from going to the landfill.
Arts and crafts teacher Anita Gardner says it’s also provided innumerable lessons for kids and teenagers at her community center.
“They see now that anything can be art. Anything can be a craft. And it doesn’t have to cost a lot to be beautiful.”
ZeroLandfill has been training architecture and design firms how to organize these events regularly. They’re now held annually in cities around Ohio – and new ZeroLandfills are being held in Minneapolis, Louisville and Boston this year.
This label on a package of cookies has six foods of the Big Eight. Over 90
percent of food allergies are caused by just eight foods: milk, eggs,
peanuts, tree nuts such as almonds, soy, wheat, fish and shellfish. (Photo
by Lester Graham)
Doctors say problems with allergies are
increasing. Up to 30% of Americans are
allergic to something. Rebecca Williams reports
doctors are trying to figure out why allergies are
on the rise:
Transcript
Doctors say problems with allergies are
increasing. Up to 30% of Americans are
allergic to something. Rebecca Williams reports
doctors are trying to figure out why allergies are
on the rise:
Micaela Keller is ten years old. Her world is full of things that might
make her sick.
“I’m allergic to pollen, ragweed, anything in the daisy family, nuts, all
nuts, dairy, soy, cats and grass.”
Food allergies are usually the worst allergies. Micaela says she knows
right away if she accidentally eats something she’s allergic to.
“When I have soy I will get really itchy and might get red in the face. My
lips might start swelling up or something.”
In the worst cases… allergic reactions can make it hard to breathe.
Sometimes, your airways can shut down, your blood pressure can drop and you
can die.
Experts say cases of food allergies have doubled over the past 10 years.
Kids have seen the highest increases. But no one knows exactly why.
Dr. Marc McMorris treats kids’ allergies. He’s in charge of the Food
Allergy Clinic at the University of Michigan.
He says our immune systems are so complex that there’s probably not a simple
explanation. He says there are probably at least three different things
going on.
First, allergies run in families. If both parents have allergies, there’s a
70 to 80% chance their child will have allergies.
Second, there’s the way we process food in this country. Take peanuts for
example. Dr. McMorris says dry roasting peanuts makes them more likely to
cause reactions.
Then… there’s the third thing and it’s really causing a lot of debate.
It’s called the hygiene hypothesis. The idea is: we might be too clean for
our own good.
“The immune system is put there for survival, to fight
bacteria, viruses and parasites and that type of thing and in the last 50 to 80
years we’ve had antibiotics, vaccines and a much cleaner world, and if the
immune system doesn’t have to worry about those issues as much it’s going to
find something else to do.”
So… instead of constantly fighting off bacteria… the immune system
thinks something as harmless as a peanut butter sandwich… is going to hurt
the body. So the immune system treats the peanut butter like an invader.
Dr. McMorris says there’s evidence that the more germs you’re exposed to
early in life, the less likely you are to have allergies. He says it
doesn’t make sense to go back to a dirtier lifestyle. But he says we should
be careful about some things… like not over-using antibiotics and harsh
antibacterial soaps.
He also says being exposed to some kinds of bacteria might help. He says
there’s evidence that having pets in the house might make you less likely to
develop allergies.
“The data for pets would say if you have three or more cats or dogs within a
household that you have a lower risk for allergies.”
That’s because you’re exposed to a certain bacteria animals carry. It might
help your system fight off allergies.
But Dr. McMorris says it’s not a good idea to rush out and get a litter of
kittens if you already have allergies in the family. That could make the
problem a lot worse.
Remember Micaela, the girl with all the allergies? Her mom thinks having
pets in the house does help.
(Joy to dogs: “Say hi. High five!” dogs bark)
Joy Keller says her kids have grown up with dogs. They’ve been tested and
it turns out they’re not allergic. So their doctor said they should keep
the dogs. Keller says they just have to vacuum more often.
“We’ve been told right from the beginning, keep where they sleep clean but
don’t be obsessive about cleaning, they have to live in this world and so
the world is not a sterile place.”
The world is not a sterile place. But maybe… we’re trying to make it a
little too sterile.
"Meter cruising" is when people drive repeatedly around the block to find an open curbside parking meter. A new book says that not only is meter cruising a waste of gas, but a symptom of a larger urban planning problem. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Finding a free parking space on the street is sometimes a big hassle. But cheap parking is beginning to be viewed as an environmental problem. A growing number of city planners say free parking isn’t really free. It just shifts the cost to taxpayers and society at large. In the first of a two-part series, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has a report on this new view of the ongoing search for a parking space:
Transcript
Finding a free parking space on the street is sometimes a big hassle. But, cheap parking is beginning to be viewed as an environmental problem. A growing number of city planners say free parking isn’t really free. It just shifts the cost to taxpayers and society at large. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has a report on this new view of the ongoing search for a parking space.
If you’ve ever played the board game Monopoly, you’ve probably crossed your fingers as you approached the spot called “free parking.” If your token lands there, it doesn’t cost you anything.
It’s free.
But a researcher says there’s really no such thing as “free parking,” at least not in the real world. UCLA Professor Donald Shoup has spent 20 years dispelling the myth that free parking is good for everyone.
In his latest book, titled The High Cost of Free Parking, Shoup tries to show that empty cars are taking the public and the environment for a costly ride.
“Bad parking policies are connected to a lot of other problems we have in society, but people haven’t been able to trace them to parking, and I think I’ve tried to do that.”
Take one of the biggest traffic issues facing large cities: meter cruising. That’s when drivers circle a block again and again, waiting for a curb-side meter.
“The average time it took to find a parking space was about three minutes. That doesn’t seem like too much for an individual to spending hunting for a free parking space, but it adds up if everybody else does it.”
Shoup says meter cruising wastes millions of gallons of gas every year. It also creates a lot of traffic congestion and pollution. Meter cruising’s common to downtowns, but even neighborhood shopping areas face the cruising problem.
Here’s an example. Devon Avenue is a bustling commercial strip on Chicago’s far North Side. There are lots of Indo-Pakistani restaurants, Muslim book stores and Jewish bakeries there. On a typical Saturday, the area’s so popular that only a handful of parking meters stay open for more than a few minutes. And it’s no wonder. Parking at the meter only costs 25 cents per hour.
The situation’s made worse by neighborhood parking permits. That’s a policy that keeps nearby residential streets off-limits to shoppers and restaurant-goers. Walking down the sidewalk, Grace is toting several shopping bags that heave with fresh fruit and Indian condiments.
“I went on the side streets and found a place about six blocks away without a need for a permit and took it and walked in. It’s one of the first really beautiful days of spring, so it wasn’t a hardship.”
If it hadn’t been such a nice day, Grace might have been circling the nearby blocks, wasting gas, trying to find a space at a parking meter.
Local shop owners say too many customers don’t like the parking situation. So the store owners complain to the local alderman, Bernard Stone. Seated in his office, Alderman Stone says no politician can afford to ignore demand for cheap parking. So he’s come up with a solution.
Stone: “If you look over your head, you’ll see a drawing of a new garage that’s gonna be built at Devon and Rockwell.”
Allee: “When’s that gonna be up?”
Stone: “Well, it should be started very shortly, I’ve been working at it for ten years.”
Developers for that project promised to create 200 low-rate parking spaces. It’s a deal they’ve struck in exchange for free city-owned land where they want to build. But the expert on parking, Donald Shoup says as politically appealing as that type of solution is, it doesn’t work. It really doesn’t keep cruising in check.
His suggestion?
Well, he takes a page from both the free-marketeers and grassroots activists. First, he says raise the price for metered parking. A lot. He says how much takes a little calculating.
“We could call this the Goldilocks principle of curb parking prices. The price is too high if too many spaces are vacant and too low if no spaces are vacant. If about fifteen percent are vacant, the price is just right.”
Traffic engineers say keeping fifteen percent of spots open stops meter cruising. To save money, people leave their parking spots sooner and everyone can find new spots faster. Next, make higher parking prices politically attractive to shop owners by letting the neighborhoods keep the meter money. Critics say that’s a hard sell because many times, people worry the money will go to city hall instead.
But Shoup says it works. He points to some California towns, where the money goes to repair streets and even hire security guards. Professor Shoup’s supporters say he might be too optimistic about the prospects for change in our impulse to hunt for the closest, most perfect parking space.
Shoup says he wants to be remembered as the first who showed, unless you’re just playing games, there’s no such thing as free parking.
A new book says that much of the space covered by parking lots is only designed for use for the holiday rush, and is unused for the rest of the year. (Photo by Lars Sundström)
A growing number of city planners say we’re building more parking than we really need. They say the fact that nearly all parking is free, makes the situation worse. Their ideas are turning nearly fifty years of urban planning on its head. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has this second report in a two-part series:
Transcript
A growing number of city planners say we’re building more parking than we really need. They say the fact that nearly all parking is free, makes the situation worse. Their ideas are turning nearly fifty years of urban planning on its head. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has this report:
If you had to pay for a parking space, would you think twice before making a frivolous trip, say, to a convenience store for a candy bar?
City planning researcher Donald Shoup bets you would stay home if you had to pay, or maybe you’d walk instead. That’s a point he makes in his recent book, The High Cost of Free Parking. In it, he tries to show that free parking entices us to waste gas. He says paved lots also compete for better uses of land, like parks or housing. Shoup says the problem’s very real – but to see it, you need to step out of your automobile.
“Any view of suburbia from the air will show you a lot of parking lots and a lot of these parking lots will have empty parking spaces.”
I decided to take a look at what’s Shoup’s talking about in Lincolnwood Illinois, a Chicago suburb. I cheated by skipping the air fare, though. Some new Internet sites can provide satellite photos of your area. I joined two of Lincolnwood’s city planners, Tim Clarke and John Lebeque, in their office to get a birds-eye view of their home turf.
Clarke: “The plus is closer.”
Allee: “Right, and go ahead and see if you can find… There it is. Lincolnwood.”
Clarke: “Wow.”
Lebeque: “Whoa.”
Allee: “So find a retail strip.”
Turns out, Donald Shoup was right. Within a minute, we find a popular grocery store, with a huge parking lot. Tim Clarke recognizes it.
“It’s probably one-third filled. I’m not sure when this aerial was taken. I’ve never seen the parking lot full.”
So why should a busy store’s parking lot be two-thirds empty most of the time? Shoup says it’s the cities’ fault. Cities make the rules. They say how many spaces each new business, house, and apartment building must provide.
By his estimation, city government does a poor job at guessing how much parking we really need. Shoup says governments force businesses to provide enough spaces to meet peak demand, such as the day after Thanksgiving, the busiest shopping day of the year.
“Everyone understands the advice, don’t build your church for Easter Sunday, but we build our parking for the week before Christmas.”
In other words, cities tell stores to build parking for the year’s busiest two weeks, even if most of the spaces are empty the rest of the time. He says, without city pressure, a lot of businesses would create smaller lots or they’d sell off parking space they don’t need.
Tim Clarke, the Lincolnwood planner, says suburbs do err on the side of too much parking, but they’re often planning for future growth. He gives an example of a small Lincolnwood dental practice that had 7 examination rooms, but only used three of them. The dentist wanted to build fewer parking spaces than the village required, because it was small and family-run.
“But one could imagine that that family at some time in life would sell that business and someone would come in and want to use all 6 or 7 examining rooms at one time.”
So city planners have to look at the long term use of a building.
Many of Lincolnwood’s largest retailers actually build more than they need to. Bob Johnson runs a Lowe’s Home Improvement store built in late 2003. He says stores like his don’t gamble with having too few spaces.
“I think customers are going to shop, again, where they feel most comfortable and what’s convenient for them. The key word there being convenience. If they’re inconvenienced, they might drive another couple blocks down the road.”
Shoup says that’s a calculation that businesses have to make. He says market forces can help decide how many spaces should be built, but government should not force retailers to have too many spaces. Nor should it force them to offer only free parking.
In fact, Professor Shoup says cities, especially suburban cities, could use land more efficiently if businesses controlled demand for parking like they control everything else: by setting the right price.
“I’m just saying that cities should not force anyone to provide more parking than drivers are willing to pay for.”
Killing our appetite for cheap, abundant parking could be difficult, but Shoup says pressure’s building for change. He says, as suburbs grow, space gets tight. And that raises prices for all land uses.
“I think most people now are focused on the high cost of housing. I think we’ve got our priorities wrong if housing is expensive and the parking is free.”
In his battle against too much parking, Shoup says the most effective weapon might be a little comparison shopping. Free parking might not seem so cheap once it’s compared to the cost of other needs.
Once hunted nearly to extinction, the gray wolf has recently rebounded under the protection of the Endangered Species Act. Now, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to take the wolf off of the Endangered Species List and hand wolf management back to the states. (Photo by Katherine Glover)
A captive wolf at the Wildlife Science Center in Minnesota. (Photo by Katherine Glover)
Peggy Callahan, Executive Director of
the Wildlife Science Center in Minnesota. Callahan works to minimize conflicts between wolves and people. (Photo by Katherine Glover)
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to remove the eastern population of the gray wolf from the Endangered Species List and turn over wolf management to state control. But not everyone thinks the states are up for it. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Katherine Glover has the story:
Transcript
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to remove the eastern population
of the gray wolf from the Endangered Species List and turn over wolf management
to state control. But not everyone thinks the states are up for it. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Katherine Glover has the story:
(sound of wolves howling)
The image of the wolf has always had a powerful effect on people. Wolves seem dangerous,
mysterious, romantic. They are a symbol of the untamed wilderness. Before Europeans came
to America, wolves roamed freely on every part of the continent. In 1630, the colony of
Massachussetts Bay started paying bounties to settlers for killing wolves. Over the next
300 years, wolf killing spread across the country, until all that was left was a few small
pockets of surviving wolf packs.
When the Endangered Species Act passed in 1973, the only wolves left to protect in the
Midwest were in Northern Minnesota. By some estimates, there were as few as 350 of them.
Today, Minnesota has a healthy wolf population of around 2400 animals, and smaller populations
are growing in Wisconsin and Michigan. Becaue of this success, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
has proposed removing the animals from the Endangered Species List. This would mean wolves would
no longer be federally protected – it would be up to the states.
(sound of gate opening)
Peggy Callagan works with captive wolves at the Wildlife Science Center in Minnesota. She’s the
Center’s co-founder and executive director. She and her staff research ways to minimize
conflicts between wolves and people. Callahan is looking forward to seeing the wolf taken off
the Endangered Species List.
“It’s a good thing for the Endangered Species Act, to take a wolf off or an eagle off or a
peregrine off when it has recovered. The act was not established to provide a permanent
hiding place. It was established to protect a species until such time that they could be
managed in a different way.”
Wisconsin and Michigan have wolves because young born in Minnesota have migrated east to start
their own packs. Callahan says how Minnesota manages its wolves will affect wolf numbers in the
Midwest. And she isn’t crazy about Minnesota’s current wolf management plan, which has different
rules for different parts of the state.
“Now, there’s a boundary; there’s a boundary called a wolf zone, and there’s a boundary that’s
called the ag zone. And nobody likes it. We went backward.”
In Northeastern Minnesota, where the majority of wolves are, landowners can only kill wolves
if they can demonstrate an immediate threat to pets or livestock. In the rest of the state, where
there is more agriculture and more people, the rules are more lenient. On their own property,
landowners can kill any wolf they feel is a danger, without having to prove anything to the state.
The Sierra Club is opposed to taking the wolf off the Endangered Species list, largely because
of Minnesota’s management plan. Ginny Yinling is the chair of the Wolf Task Force of the Sierra
Club in Minnesota.
“They’ve pretty much given carte blanche to landowners, or their agents, to kill wolves
pretty much at any time in the southern and western two thirds of the state; they don’t even
have to have an excuse, if a wolf’s on their property they can kill it. Instead of this being
what should have been a victory in terms of wolf recovery and the success of the Endangered
Species Act, instead we’re afraid it’s going to turn into something of a disaster.”
Yinling is also concerned with the protection of wolf habitat, such as den sites, rendezvous
sites, and migration corridors.
“The current management plan protects none of those areas; it leaves it entirely up to the
discretion of the land managers.”
But wildlife managers say these are not critical for a large wolf population
like Minnesota’s. Mike DonCarlos is the wildlife program manager for the Minnesota
Department of Natural Resources.
“As you look at the range of species that are threatened by habitat change, ironically the wolf
in Minnesota is not one of them. As long as there’s a prey base that continues, wolves should
do just fine. The key is mortality rates and availability of food.”
In Wisconsin and Michigan, where there are fewer wolves, state laws will continue to protect
wolf habitat. Peggy Callahan says she has faith that the wolves will be fine, even if the
Minnesota state plan is not perfect. But at the Sierra Club, Ginny Yinling says they have
plans to challenge wolf delisting in court.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Katherine Glover.
A group called Scientists and Engineers for Change is touring battleground states, campaigning against the Bush Administration.
(Photo by Emanuel Lobeck)
A group of prominent American scientists, including 10 Nobel prize-winners, will bring a campaign against the Bush Administration to key battleground states in the region. The group says the President has misused and marginalized scientific research. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports:
Transcript
A group of prominent American scientists, including 10 Nobel prize-winners,
will bring a campaign against the Bush Administration to key battleground states
in the Great Lakes. The group says the President has misused and marginalized
scientific research. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s David Sommerstein reports:
The political advocacy group formed last week is called Scientists and Engineers for
Change. Stanford University professor Douglas Osheroff is a member. He won the Nobel
Prize for physics in 1996. He says the Bush Administration is compromising scientific integrity.
“Having scientists reporting to middle-level bureaucrats who simply don’t have the background
to assess what the scientists are saying and he, of course, has essentially put a gag order
on scientists that are paid by the government directly. They are really not free to say what
they want.”
Osheroff also says President Bush and Vice President Cheney’s ties to the oil industry have
led them to minimize evidence of climate change.
Members of the Scientists and Engineers for Change will speak in Battleground states
like Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania this month.
The group has no direct ties to Senator John Kerry’s campaign. The Bush campaign hasn’t
responded to the group’s claims.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m David Sommerstein.
Sewage overflows during heavy rains have long been implicated in illnesses in people. For the first time, the Environmental Protection Agency has come up with an estimate of just how many people are getting sick from swimming at contaminated beaches. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:
Transcript
Sewage overflows during heavy rains have long been implicated in
illnesses in people. For the first time, the Environmental Protection
Agency has come up with an estimate of just how many people are getting
sick from swimming at contaminated beaches. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:
The EPA estimates that somewhere between 3,500 and 5,500 beachgoers get sick
every year when untreated sewage is flushed into rivers, streams and lakes
by heavy rains. The EPA’s Ben Grumbles says the report is another reason
for cities to fix their aging sewage systems – despite the high cost.
“And it can literally add up to hundreds of millions, a couple of billion dollars, for
very large cities, to fix the problem for the long-term.”
Grumbles says many communities can avoid that bigger expense by investing
in new technologies to better manage existing systems – and keeping pipes
well-maintained and free of debris.
Environmental groups say they hope legislators are listening. Congress just reduced
the fund from which communities can get loans for sewer projects by 500 million dollars.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tracy Samilton.
Aaron and Claire Liepman with an old faucet and garden owl they're hoping to give away on the Freecycle Network. Aaron Liepman moderates two freecycle groups in Michigan. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)
We all have things that we no longer use hidden in our closets, or stuffed away in the attic, or crammed into the garage. It’s not that we’ll ever use them, but we can’t bear to just throw them away. They’re still good. Now, a new service is matching up people who want to get rid of things with people who want those things. In part of an ongoing series called ‘Your Choice; Your Planet,’ the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams explores freecycling:
Transcript
We all have things that we no longer use hidden in our closets, or stuffed away
in the attic, or crammed into the garage. It’s not that we’ll ever use them, but we
can’t bear to just throw them away. They’re still good. Now, a new service is
matching up people who want to get rid of things with people who want those
things. In part of an ongoing series called ‘Your Choice; Your Planet,’ the Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams explores freecycling:
I’m a packrat. I just wanted to make that clear right from the beginning. If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll probably confess you’re a packrat too.
But even I know when there’s something taking up space in my house that HAS to go. In the back of my closet, there’s a large, heavy, men’s wetsuit.
You know, a SCUBA diving suit. A relative gave it to me when he moved away. Now, I’m not a diver. I’m not even really a snorkeler. But I’ve kept it for two years. You know, just in case.
I need a little help getting rid of things. So, when I heard about freecycling… I thought, “This is it. This will help me face my inner packrat.”
Freecycling uses email groups to connect people in their hometowns. It brings together one person with their broken telescope… and that one person who needs – or just wants it.
The only rule – everything has to be free. No money, no trading. And also, you meet the giver or taker in person.
It’s Deron Beal’s idea. He manages recycling crews for businesses in Tuscon, Arizona. One day a year ago, he found himself with a warehouse full of stuff.
“We had a lot of the businesses we recycle with
downtown giving us old desks or computers, saying, can you do something with this. I’ll be darned if we got so much stuff in, I figured, let’s open this up to the public and set up the freecycle network.”
Beal emailed some friends and nonprofits. At first, he says it was just he and his friends giving each other stuff. But in just a few months, freecycle turned into a verb. Beal set up a website, freecycle-dot-org. And put instructions up so people could start freecycling in their own cities. Now, more than 90-thousand people all around the world are doing it.
So… I went to see the freecycling guy in my area, Aaron Liepman. He moderates two freecycle groups. He makes sure everything stays free, and steps in if people start arguing. He also helps packrats like me freecycle.
(sound in, typing)
Aaron sets me up on his computer.
“So, let me sign out and you sign in. (clicking) So now you type in your subject, just like an email message.
RW: “Offer: wetsuit. What else?”
“Wetsuit, SCUBA wetsuit. (crinkles, zipper noise) Looks like it’s a size large, that’ll be useful information. It has a little hat to keep you warm in the water (laughs).”
(typing out)
We look over my post, and I click Send.
So, I’ve started cleaning out my closet. But I’m not totally converted to this freecycling idea. I mean, really, aren’t we just moving our stuff from one house to the next? That doesn’t really cut down on consumption, does it?
I turned to University of Michigan professor Raymond DeYoung. He studies people’s buying and recycling habits. He thinks freecycling probably won’t change our buying habits all that much.
“Because we’re never going to be able with freecycling to get the new, get the novel, get the big, because by definition it’s already been bought, it’s already old, it’s the smaller. So it can’t impact our entire consumption behavior.”
DeYoung says, for freecycling to really succeed, we’d have to stop getting bigger houses. And stop filling them up with more and more things. But it’s hard, even for people who want to try to get by with less stuff.
I guess a wetsuit is a good first step.
It’s been a couple days, and I’ve gotten four messages. The first came five hours after my posting. From Shawn… he wrote: “I’ll take the wetsuit.” But he didn’t sound that excited.
In freecycling, you can use “first come, first serve” to decide who gets your item. But you don’t always have to. And I kind of wanted my wetsuit to be appreciated… you know, actually get to see the water. So I waited a couple days. Then, I got Kelly’s message. She wrote: “WOW!” in all capital letters and said her son would love the wetsuit… for snorkeling.
So I emailed Kelly. And we set up a place to meet in downtown Ann Arbor.
(street sound up)
“Wetsuit!” (Oh, are you Kelly?) “yeah, I’m Kelly.. (Hi, I’m Rebecca. This is the wetsuit.) Great!”
Kelly’s been freecycling for a month. And she says she’s hooked.
And judging from the postings, a lot of people are. They seem to like getting other people’s beer can collections and turtle sandboxes.
But some on the list worry it’s getting to be too much of a good thing. People have started to ask for laptops, and houses… and a time machine, any condition.
“I think because it’s so new, some people are asking for funny things, like don’t we all want cash, and a Lamborghini (laughs). I just laugh at those and go on.”
Kelly says she thinks the network will probably get past that after awhile, leaving behind just the really devoted freecyclers.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Rebecca Williams.
The eyes of the world were recently focused on Seattle, Washington for
the World Trade Organization conference. Despite their efforts, tens of
thousands of protesters were unable to stop the
conference. As Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Suzanne
Elston observes, rather than fighting the globalization of trade
maybe its time we fully embraced the idea:
In their submission, the environment groups charge that oil extraction processes leach contaminants into both surface and groundwater in the Athabasca watershed. (Photo courtesy of Aude CC-2.0)
