Right now, cars get an average 27 and a half miles per gallon. By
2011, they'll have to get 30.2 (Photo by Ben VonWaggoner)
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued new vehicle fuel economy standards for cars and trucks. As Tracy Samilton reports, it’s the first change since 1985:
Transcript
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued new vehicle fuel economy standards for cars and trucks. As Tracy Samilton reports, it’s the first change since 1985:
Right now, cars get an average 27 and a half miles per gallon. By
2011, they’ll have to get 30.2. Light trucks, including SUVs, will
have to get 24.1 miles per gallon, up a mile per gallon.
Eli Hopson
is with the Union of Concerned Scientists. He says the change is not
dramatic but it’s still an important milestone.
“The car standards haven’t
changed. They’ve been at 27.5 for over twenty years. It is a big deal. It’s
been a long time in coming.”
Carmakers are prepared for the new standard and say they’ll meet it.
Future standards will be tougher.
Auto companies usually complain
when mileage standards are raised. But times have changed, especially
for Chrysler and GM. They might not be as vocal since accepting
billions in federal loans.
Jen Spence's collection of trash/ recycling containers on the east side of Toronto. The city has retooled its recycling program in
recent years to make it easier for residents. The big blue container is for recycling, the green hanging pail is for compost. Toronto only picks up trash twice a month - but Spence's family doesn't even fill that small trash can. (Photo by Julie Grant)
Sometimes it takes a little public
embarrassment to get on the right track.
Back in 2000, the city of Toronto couldn’t
find a place to send its garbage – so it
started trucking trash across the border
to the US. Julie Grant reports that inspired
Toronto to create one of the most aggressive
recycling programs in North America:
Transcript
Sometimes it takes a little public
embarrassment to get on the right track.
Back in 2000, the city of Toronto couldn’t
find a place to send its garbage – so it
started trucking trash across the border
to the US. Julie Grant reports that inspired
Toronto to create one of the most aggressive
recycling programs in North America:
Some days Toronto has sent as many as 150 trucks full of
trash 300 miles to a landfill in the U.S. For those of you
counting at home, that’s 90,000 highway miles a day. That’s
not only bad for the environment. As gas prices have risen,
it’s also bad for Toronto’s bottom line.
But the bigger issue was Toronto wasn’t taking care of its
own trash. It wasn’t even keeping it in Canada. It was
trucking it to Michigan.
And the people in Michigan – they didn’t like it too much.
They’ve complained about the stink of Toronto’s trash for
years.
They even got the U.S. Congress to look at ways to stop it
from crossing the border.
But, free trade even covers a commodity such as garbage.
The people in Toronto are a little embarrassed by it all.
(sound of a neighborhood)
David Wallett looks perfectly pleased with the landscaping in
his small lawn in east Toronto. But his eyes tilt downward
when he’s asked about shipping the city’s waste to Michigan.
“The downside of that is all those trucks ripping down the
401. I mean that can’t be good for the environment to have
lots of trucks burning gas just getting it there.”
But the City of Toronto had signed a contract with a
Michigan landfill. So the trucks kept ripping down highway
401, even as fuel costs got higher and higher.
Geoff Rathbone is Toronto’s general manager of solid waste.
He says the contract is a dark cloud – but it got the city and
residents on-board with recycling.
“The shipment to Michigan really became a wake up call that
allowed us to set very aggressive waste diversion targets.
And to realize that what we were shipping out of our country
was really more of a resource than a waste.”
Rathbone says Toronto set a tough goal – to reduce the
waste stream by 70%. And the city put up nearly a half-
billion dollars to do it.
But a funny thing happened as they started increasing their
recycling stream. Oil prices kept rising. That meant
commodity prices kept rising, too. Metals, plastics, and
paper have started to gain real value. Recycling paid!
And Toronto kept re-tooling its recycling program to make it
really easy for people.
(sound of a neighborhood)
On the east side of Toronto, Dick Wallett and his neighbors
each have one of those huge cart-like garbage barrels – the
ones with a handle and wheels. But it’s not for trash. It’s for
recyclables.
Jen Spence says it’s much easier than it used to be.
“For awhile it was very complicated. We had to put
newspapers in one bin and glass and bottles and jars in
another bin.”
Now they just throw everything into that one big container
and wheel it to the street. The city picks up and sorts the
recyclables. For free. It also picks up compost. You know,
food waste. Spence takes out a small pail from under the
kitchen sink to show me. It’s latched shut.
“This is the green bin. The city of Toronto sends this out to
anyone who’s going to be producing garbage. It collects
flies really badly, and it’s hard to clean, so they send out
these bags that are perfectly for it. It’s a nice size. It fills up
pretty quick and doesn’t stink. We used to have a huge can
and now it’s just that little guy that goes out every two
weeks.”
The city makes it kind of hard to take out regular trash –
things that can’t be recycled or composted. Like Spence
said, it’s only picked twice a month. And you pay as you
throw. The more you make, the more you pay.
Toronto has been able to cut the number of trucks headed to
the landfill in Michigan in half. And it’s moving toward it’s
goal of reducing the waste stream by 70%.
The city even plans to make energy out of the compost it’s
collecting.
The city plans to generate electricity and eventually make a
biofuel from the compost. That will be used to run Toronto’s
trucks to the landfill.
Oh, but those trucks won’t be going to the landfill in
Michigan.
The city has finally found a Canadian landfill that will start
taking Toronto’s waste in 2010.
Gerry Moore’s the CEO of Island Waste Management – the company that runs the waste program on Prince Edward Island. He’s pointing at an aerial shot of the compost facility. (Photo by Kinna Ohman)
Gordon Smith’s the facilities supervisor for ADI – the company that runs the compost facility on PEI. He’s standing next to a pile of compost that’s still curing. It’s around 130 degrees in this warehouse. (Photo by Kinna Ohman)
Everywhere on the island, there are at least three or four waste options. Even public trash receptacles in town have three slots for waste, recyclables, and compost. This one’s at a public campground. (Photo by Kinna Ohman)
The recycling and composting rate
in the United States runs just around thirty
percent. That means seventy percent of our
waste still goes to landfills. Government
officials and others in charge of recycling
programs say we’re doing pretty well with
what we have available. But there’s a
community that’s challenging that assumption.
Kinna Ohman reports:
Transcript
The recycling and composting rate
in the United States runs just around thirty
percent. That means seventy percent of our
waste still goes to landfills. Government
officials and others in charge of recycling
programs say we’re doing pretty well with
what we have available. But there’s a
community that’s challenging that assumption.
Kinna Ohman reports:
Prince Edward Island’s one of those places where people who grow up here, stay here.
And it’s no wonder. The island’s off Canada’s eastern coast. It’s covered with rolling
green farmland, dark forests, and copper-red beaches. It’s Canada’s smallest province –
about the size of Delaware.
Prince Edward Island has a population of only 160,000. There seems to be enough room
for everyone.
But not for every thing.
Around ten years ago, the residents of Prince Edward Island saw their landfills filling up.
That meant digging more. They wanted to do something about it – and fast.
So they started an aggressive recycling and composting program.
Gerry Moore’s the CEO of Island Waste Management – the company that runs the
program. Moore says to make it happen quickly,
“We had to make this mandatory. It wasn’t something that we could go out and ask
people, ‘well, listen, this is the right thing to environmentally.’ We made it
mandatory.”
Moore says they had to be tough. If people didn’t separate their compost and recycling
from their waste, the company refused to pick it up. That was a difficult time for
politicians.
“And, to be quite honest with you, in the initial stages, it was fairly painful. But, if
we didn’t do what we did, when we did it, the landfill we have now would be totally
full and we’d have to have another one. We’re recycling everything we totally
possibly can.”
(sounds of a compost facility)
And they are. People and businesses on Prince Edward Island recycle and compost 65%
of their waste. That’s more than double the average in the U.S.
A lot of the former waste now goes to the island’s composting facility. The facility takes
care of miscellaneous garbage that can’t be recycled – things such as certain types of
paper and food scraps.
(sound of door closing)
Gordon Smith shows me the compost curing warehouse. We’re now sealed in with
steaming mounds of dark compost that almost reach the ceiling. It’s muggy and hot.
About 130 degrees.
“So this is our finished compost you’re looking at right here. This large pile. And
that large pile over there as well.”
Smith’s the facilities supervisor for ADI – the company running the composting plant.
The facility handles 30,000 tons every year.
And with all that, you’d think Prince Edward Islanders would say ‘job done.’ Right? But
they’re trying to reduce landfill waste even more.
They want businesses to start using packaging that can be composted or recycled. Many
local businesses have switched.
But there’s a problem. Big multinational chain stores bring goods to Prince Edward
Island in packaging that cannot be recycled or composted. It all ends up in the island’s
landfill.
Gerry Moore knows his province is too small to really influence these companies. So
that’s where he hopes other communities will help out and join in.
“There will be initial pain with that in the front end. And a lot of politicians and
public figures don’t want to go through that pain. But, you know, we only have one
earth. And whether you’re from New York, or Prince Edward Island, or all over
the globe, anything we can remanufacture and reuse is only going to extend the life
of the planet.”
And Prince Edward Island officials think if they can do it, other places can too – if they
have the political will.
Ethanol can be made from material that would end up in a landfill (Source: Patrick-br at Wikimedia Commons)
For the past few years, ethanol’s been
a political darling, but lately it seems the
party’s over. There’s concern the industry’s
using too much corn. That’s contributing to
rising food prices. Well, some companies want
to avoid the controversy. Reporter Shawn Allee explains they want to make ethanol from
stuff we leave behind at the dinner table:
Transcript
For the past few years, ethanol’s been
a political darling, but lately it seems the
party’s over. There’s concern the industry’s
using too much corn. That’s contributing to
rising food prices. Well, some companies want
to avoid the controversy. Reporter Shawn Allee explains they want to make ethanol from
stuff we leave behind at the dinner table:
To give you a sense of how touchy the ethanol issue’s gotten, consider what happened to Presidential
candidate Barack Obama. Last year, he supported mandates to add billions of gallons of ethanol to our
fuel stream. But recently, on ‘Meet the Press’, he was defensive.
“If it turns out, we got to make changes to our ethanol policy to help people get something
to eat, that’s the step we take. But I also believe ethanol has been an important
transitional tool for us to start dealing with our long-term energy crisis.”
Obama and other ethanol backers say we’re not stuck with corn-based ethanol. We can use wood chips
or energy crops like switchgrass.
But this cellulosic ethanol is a ways off.
First, the technology’s expensive. Plus, farmers don’t even grow energy crops now.
So, some companies hope to make ethanol from stuff that doesn’t need farms at all. It would come
from garbage cans, like this one at a coffee shop.
“In that receptacle there’s a lot of paper, and there’s some food bits and there’s some
scraps. So, we’re able to turn that into sugar. And the weak sugar, then we ferment, we distill into alcohol, and we get the ethanol.”
Zig Resiak is with a start-up company called Indiana Ethanol Power. He says garbage could compete
with corn.
“If you have a corn-to-ethanol facility, you’re going to pay for the feedstock. Trash, as a feedstock, we don’t
pay for it. The municipalities actually pay us to take the trash, just like a
landfill will take the trash.”
Resiak’s company isn’t the only one to figure this out. At least three other ethanol firms are asking
cities to hand over their trash, and cash. Besides being cheaper, there might be other advantages to
using garbage for ethanol.
Bob Dineen is with the industry group the Renewable Fuels Association.
“We have garbage all across the country.”
Here’s why that matters.
Before it makes it to the pump, ethanol needs to be blended at refineries. Dineens says those
refineries are far from corn farms and rural ethanol plants, but refineries are often close to big metro
areas, and big-city trash.
“A company that is able to produce from local landfill refuse – he’s clearly going to have an
advantage in terms of transportation, feedstock costs, and all the rest.”
Well, that’s the theory, anyway. The market hasn’t tested garbage-based ethanol yet.
So, what exactly is stopping companies like Indiana Ethanol Power from giving it a go?
Resiak says it’s simple – cities just haven’t been willing to part with their trash.
“Municipalities are very comfortable with putting it in the back of a truck and letting it go to the landfill. They don’t think about it twice. But for us to come in and say we’re going to
take it cheaper and we’re going to save you millions of dollars a year on your tipping fee – that’s different
and that’s kind of scary, and they want to take a good, strong look at that.”
Resiak predicts by the time cities do come around to the idea, there will be even more companies ready to
take garbage bags out of their hands.
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.
Right now, cars get an average 27 and a half miles per gallon. By 2011, they'll have to get 30.2 (Photo by Ben VonWaggoner)
