Tracking Down Your Trash

  • (Photo source: Daniel Candido at Wikimedia Commons)

Businesses keep track of the supply-
chain, but no one really keeps track
of trash in the same way. Lester
Graham reports some researchers
think there’s something to learn
from what we throw away:

Transcript

Businesses keep track of the supply-
chain, but no one really keeps track
of trash in the same way. Lester
Graham reports some researchers
think there’s something to learn
from what we throw away:

MIT researchers are going to keep track of some trash, using smart tags – tiny electronic tags. They’ll tag thousands of piece of trash, like plastic bottles. Then they’ll track them online in real time.

Assaf Biderman is with the MIT SENSE-able City Lab. He says already the public seems interested, but he hopes some other people follow along: big city decision-makers and waste disposal companies.

Biderman: “Who could benefit greatly from a better understanding of how garbage moves through the system with the idea of making their processes as good as possible.”

Graham: “Save some fuel, maybe?”

Biderman: “Save some fuel, you know, be better to the environment. I think everybody can benefit.”

Exhibits in New York and Seattle open this week, but starting tomorrow, anyone can follow the trail of trash online at MIT’s trashtrack website.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Cracking Down on Bulb Disposal

  • Each compact fluorescent light bulb has a small amount of mercury in it (Source: Yann at Wikimedia Commons)

Old incandescent light bulbs
are getting pushed out of the
way by the more efficient compact
fluorescent light bulbs. But
the bulbs contain a small amount
of a toxic chemical. Mark Brush
reports, that has some regulators
concerned:

Transcript

Old incandescent light bulbs
are getting pushed out of the
way by the more efficient compact
fluorescent light bulbs. But
the bulbs contain a small amount
of a toxic chemical. Mark Brush
reports, that has some regulators
concerned:

Each one of these CFL bulbs contains a tiny amount of mercury.

It’s not a big a concern. If a bulb breaks in your home, you’re supposed to vent the room for 15 minutes before you clean it up.

But regulators are concerned about large volumes of bulbs.

The state of New York decided to crack down on CBS after the Late Show with Dave Letterman threw bulbs off a rooftop.

Letterman: “You have some incandescent light bulbs and you have some fluorescent light bulbs. How many do you think you have there?”

Assistant: “Uh, a couple of hundred.”

Letterman: “A couple hundred”

(sound of bulbs crashing on ground)

The little cloud of dust that rose as the bulbs broke caused people from around the country to call the New York Department of Environmental Conservation. And CBS reached a settlement with the state.

Most home owners don’t need to worry about state regulators knocking on their doors. It’s not illegal to put them in your trash in most states.

But officials encourage home owners to find a bulb take-back program like the ones listed on EPA’s website.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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DC Gets Tough on Disposable Bags

  • The Anacostia River in Washington DC is ridden with garbage, and plastic bags make up 20% of the trash tossed in (Photo by Kavitha Cardoza)

For years, the Anacostia River that flows through

Washington DC was widely known as the forgotten

river, lost in the shadow of the better known

Potomac. At one point, some say the trash in the

river was so thick you could walk from one side to

the other without getting wet. Today things are

better. But, most people say not enough has been

done. DC’s city council is considering a five cent

tax on every disposable plastic and paper bag with

most of the money going to cleanup efforts. As Kavitha

Cardoza reports if it passes,

the fee would be the toughest law on plastic and paper

bags in the country:

Transcript

For years, the Anacostia River that flows through

Washington DC was widely known as the forgotten

river, lost in the shadow of the better known

Potomac. At one point, some say the trash in the

river was so thick you could walk from one side to

the other without getting wet. Today things are

better. But, most people say not enough has been

done. DC’s city council is considering a five cent

tax on every disposable plastic and paper bag with

most of the money going to cleanup efforts. As Kavitha

Cardoza reports if it passes,

the fee would be the toughest law on plastic and paper

bags in the country:

Kindergartners from the Evergreen School in Wheaton, Maryland are leaning over a rail and looking at bags, cups, wrappers and other trash floating in the Anacostia River.

They’ve travelled to D.C. to learn more about, as they put it, “what kills fish.”

The five-year-olds are NOT impressed with what they see.

“Bottles, balls, yucky. It’s really, really disgusting garbage!”

The children roll up their sleeves and start pulling trash from the bank. But, it’s going to take a lot more than their small hands to clean up the mess.

Jim Connerly is with the Anacostia Watershed Society. He says Washington D.C.’s own environmental studies estimate each year 20,000 tons of trash is thrown into the Anacostia.

“It’s like a landfill on a conveyor belt.”

Studies also show plastic bags make up about 20% of the trash in the Anacostia.

When grocery bags are thrown away, many of them are swept up by rain water and carried into storm drains that flow into streams. They end up in the Anacostia.

The bags often ensnare birds and turtles. Fish eat the small torn pieces. That results in toxins making their way into the food chain.

Tommy Wells is the D.C. council member who came up with the idea of charging a nickel for plastic and paper bags.

“By charging a nickel, it really gets more into your head than your pocket. Also, it reminds you maybe I should have bought a reusable bag.”

And part of the money raised will help low-income residents buy reusable bags.

But Laurie Walker hasn’t heard about that proposal. She says, as a senior citizen on a fixed income, those nickels can add up quickly.

“Five cents is a whole lot of money, if I put it in a jar, every month when I get paid. I can buy a chicken, hot dogs, eggs for my grandchildren or for myself. I can buy a whole lot with that.”

The fee would raise nearly 2.5 million dollars a year. Besides the reusable bags, the money will fund educational efforts and return a portion to local businesses as an incentive.

The chemical industry which makes the plastic bags hopes anybody opposed to these kinds of fees or taxes will come out against this proposal. But environmentalists like the idea.

(sound of a beaver)

Back at the Anacostia River system, Jim Connerly says, with a little effort, the Anacostia could be trash-free in just a few years.


“In a perfect world, the water quality would be addressed. The thing that’s encouraging to me is that nature is always trying to seek balance. If we let the river alone, if we stop the input of pollutants, it would clean itself. It’s just that we’re not allowing the river to do that.”

Connerly and many others are hoping the Washington DC bag fee helps make that happen.

For The Environment Report, I’m Kavitha Cardoza.

Related Links

Recycling Your Christmas Tree

  • (Photo courtesy of the Architect of the Capitol)

Most cities discourage you
from throwing your Christmas tree
away. Rebecca Williams takes a look
at what you can do with your tree:

Transcript

Most cities discourage you
from throwing your Christmas tree
away. Rebecca Williams takes a look
at what you can do with your tree:

In a lot of cities you can drop your tree off, or a city truck will come and
pick it up. Then they’ll run it through a big chipper and make mulch. Cities
use the mulch for parks or zoos. And sometimes you can buy some of that
mulch for your own yard.

Bryan Weinert is a solid waste coordinator in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He
says you’ve got to make sure you take all the ornaments and tinsel off the
tree before you put it at the curb.

“You know that compromises the quality of our finished product and in
some cases can actually damage our grinding equipment.”

Other places use the trees to create fish habitat. And this year, when the
Vatican is done with its 108 foot tall Christmas tree, it’ll use it to make
wooden toys.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Turning Garbage Into Gas

  • Jeffrey Langbehn beside one his family's hunting catches. He directs the Lake County Solid Waste Management District. His enthusiasm for the outdoors is one reason he says he supports the idea of finding landfill alternatives. The prospect of lower waste-handling costs is another. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

Trash is usually out of sight, out of mind, but occasionally garbage grabs attention – especially when it starts costing a lot. Landfill fees are rising, and with higher costs to ship or truck garbage, a lot of communities are scrounging for alternatives to landfills. Reporter Shawn Allee found one community that hopes a trendy fuel might solve its garbage problem:

Transcript

Trash is usually out of sight, out of mind, but occasionally garbage grabs attention – especially when it starts costing a lot. Landfill fees are rising, and with higher costs to ship or truck garbage, a lot of communities are scrounging for alternatives to landfills. Reporter Shawn Allee found one community that hopes a trendy fuel might solve its garbage problem:

For most of us, there’s nothing less sexy than trash. But in part of Indiana, that’s changing.

“One second.”

“Take your time.”

I’m waiting for Jeff Langbehn. He heads a solid waste district in Northwest Indiana.

Lately, Langbehn’s phone is ringing off the hook – from reporters and colleagues. And why are they calling? Basically, it’s because Langbehn’s county is leaning toward doing something new with garbage – something that intrigues trash bureaucrats, maybe even the one in your town.

You see, Lake County Indiana is this close to letting companies convert most of its garbage into ethanol, you know, to run cars. Langbehn says his landfill costs are rising quickly. In his case, that would be 42 dollars per ton.

“The two garbage to ethanol providers were for $17.50 ton. Those savings alone made our board say, hey, we have to pay attention to this.”

And so Lake County Indiana sat down with the ethanol operators.

“And we asked the hard questions like, ‘are there any of these things operating in the country?’ All the standard questions you would ask.”

Shawn Allee: “Wait a minute, when you asked who else has done this and they said, no one, what did you think?”

“Well, the fact of the matter is that the components are being used, and have been used for a very, very long time.”

Sure, some components of garbage-to-ethanol technology have been around for a while. But, if you ask ethanol producers where they actually turn trash into ethanol, they say they can do it in labs, or in test facilities. That’s got some folks in the trash biz nervous.

“I guess I’d say I’m cautious and wary of using any new technology to process solid waste.”

Jeremy O’Brien researches trash for the Solid Waste Association of North America – a trade group. He’s seen landfill alternatives come and go.

“Early on in the 1970s we tried a number of technologies including composting the waste stream, anaerobic digestion, and then we also tried incineration.”

Of those, only incineration survived, but early incinerators had a nasty habit of spewing toxic pollutants, stuff like dioxin, out their smokestacks. O’Brien says incinerators are now cleaner.

His point, though, is that it takes time to improve technology. He worries some communities bent on turning garbage into ethanol could end up holding the bag.

“The facility could fail early on and they’d be stuck without having a place to put their waste.”

Indiana’s Jeff Langbehn says that won’t happen to his county. He says the ethanol companies will cover their own financing, and the county will have insurance as a backup. But speaking of backups, there already is another landfill alternative, right?

Shawn Allee: “Why can’t we just recycle all this and make it into stuff people buy again?”

“There are a number of people out there that could give a rat’s patoot about recycling. And that’s the waste stream we’re having to deal with. The other reality is, recycling is expensive, so I don’t believe it’s a realistic possibility for us to recycle everything, both from a cost standpoint and a societal standpoint.”

So, Langbehn says recycling helps, but ethanol might do more. He says he kind of wishes someone else would try trash-to-ethanol technology first, but it’s worth testing out.

And he says it might be so cheap he won’t even have to hold his nose.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links