Kevin Earl Dayhoff Art One-half Banana Stems

Kevin Earl Dayhoff Art One-half Banana Stems - www.kevindayhoff.com Address: PO Box 124, Westminster MD 21158 410-259-6403 kevindayhoff@gmail.com Runner, writer, artist, fire & police chaplain Mindless ramblings of a runner, journalist & artist: Travel, art, artists, authors, books, newspapers, media, writers and writing, journalists and journalism, reporters and reporting, technology, music, culture, opera... National & International politics www.kevindayhoff.net For community: www.kevindayhoff.org For art, technology, writing, & travel: www.kevindayhoff.com

Thursday, November 26, 1998

19981124 and 25 Dr Connett presentation on Municipal waste incineration

Municipal waste incineration

A poor solution for the twenty first century

Paul Connett's speech on incineration and waste reduction

A presentation by Dr. Paul Connett Professor of Chemistry

St. Lawrence University

Canton, NY 13617.

At the 4th Annual International Management Conference

Waste-To-Energy

Nov. 24 & 25, 1998

Amsterdam.

About the author

Dr. Paul Connett is a full and tenured professor of chemistry at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, where he has taught for 15 years. He obtained his undergraduate degree in natural sciences from Cambridge University and his Ph.D. in chemistry from Dartmouth College in the US. For the past 14 years he has researched waste management issues with a special emphasis on the dangers posed by incineration and the safer and more sustainable non-burn alternatives.

He has attended numerous international symposia on dioxin, and with his colleague Tom Webster has presented six papers at these symposia which have been subsequently published in Chemosphere. He has given over 1500 public presentations on these issues in 48 states in the US and 40 other countries. With his wife Ellen he edits the newsletter Waste Not, which is in its twelfth year of publication. With Roger Bailey, Professor of Fine Arts at St. Lawrence University, he has produced over 40 videotapes on waste management, dioxin and other environmental issues.

To aid your browsing of this important and extensive speech, CANK has created an Index to all headings and has also highlighted some (but not all) key phrases in red

Executive Summary

Far from it being the universally proven technology claimed by its promoters, the incineration of municipal trash with energy recovery has been an experiment which after 20 years has left the citizens of industrialised countries with a legacy of unacceptably high levels of dioxins and related compounds in their food, their tissues, their babies and in wild life.

The author argues that as the industry has struggled to make incineration safe, they have, like the nuclear power industry before them, priced themselves out of the market. Moreover, as they have sought air pollution control devices to capture the extremely toxic by-products of combustion, the resulting residues have become more problematic and costly to handle, dispose and contain. There are still remaining concerns about the safety of incinerators, especially as they are built in developing economies, which do not have the resources to build, operate or monitor them properly.

However, even if these concerns are overcome, as we move into the twenty first century, the role of trash incineration, with or without energy recovery, will become less and less viable, both economically and environmentally.

Our future task will be dominated by a need to find sustainable ways of living on the planet. Those who have been preoccupied with making incineration safe have lavished their engineering ingenuity on the wrong question. Society's task is not to perfect the destruction of our waste, but to find ways to avoid making it. The argument that burning waste can be used to recover energy makes for good sales promotion, but the reality is that if saving energy is the goal, then more energy can be saved by society as a whole by reusing and recycling objects and materials than can be recovered by burning them. Municipal waste is a low-tech problem. It is made by mixing. It is unmade by separation.

Both problem and solution are at our fingertips, not on the drawing boards of Swiss or Swedish engineers. In the longer term, after the citizen has played his or her part by supporting source separation, reuse, recycling, composting and toxic removal, industry has to pay more attention to the way objects and materials are made and used. How an object is going to be reused or recycled has to be built into the initial design decisions

To recognise that it is overconsumption that is giving us both global warming and a waste disposal crisis, is to recognise that trash is the most concrete connection each individual has to the global crisis. More effort has to be put into resisting the largely post-war American philosophy that "the more one consumes the happier one becomes'", before it makes the planet uninhabitable. A way has to be found to tame the voracious appetites of the multinational corporations which plunder the world for short-term profit. This cannot be done until we as individuals find a way to resist the skilful advertising that traps us within a whole web of false needs. The antidote to overconsumption is community building. The fierce local arguments that ensue over the siting of both landfills and incinerators can be used to force these issues onto the political agenda.

Incineration might make sense if we had another planet to go to, but without that sci-fi escape, it must be resisted in favour of more down-to-earth solutions that we can live with, both within our local communities and on the planet as a whole. Both incineration and raw waste landfilling attempt to bury the evidence of an unacceptable throwaway lifestyle. Every incinerator built delays this fundamental discussion by at least 20 years.

Introduction

As I deliver these comments I am very conscious of the fact that many of the people sitting in this audience earn their living from the operation of incinerators. They will probably find many of my views antithetical to their own. I applaud the organisers of this conference for having the courage to allow me to speak. Too often, decision-makers do not discover the downside to incineration until the wrath of the public is unleashed.

To paraphrase the words of Shakespeare's character Mark Anthony, I come here not to praise the idea of the incineration of municipal waste with energy recovery, but to bury it.

However, whether you agree with my position or not, I hope you agree with Joseph Joubert, who said, " 'Tis better to debate a question without settling it, than to settle a question without debating it". In my view, incineration of municipal waste looks back to the nineteenth century, not forward to the twenty first. Indeed, the first waste-to-energy plant was operating in Hamburg, Germany in 1895.

I will argue that even if the finest engineers were able to make incineration safe - i.e. captured all of the toxic emissions and found a safe method of handling and storing the ash - from an ethical point of view, they would not have made the incineration of trash acceptable. It simply doesn't make ethical sense to spend so much time, money and effort destroying materials we should be sharing with the future. Thus, those who have set themselves the Herculean task of perfecting the art and science of incineration, have poured a massive amount of attention into the wrong end of the problem and produced a sophisticated set of answers to the wrong question. As we prepare to enter the twenty first century, society's task is not find a new place or a new machine in which to put the trash, but to find ways of not making waste in the first place.

When one first hears about trash incineration it seems like a good idea. I certainly thought so. It promised to rid our Northern NY county of 32 leaking landfills and to produce energy as well. It seemed like a win-win situation. For a municipal official beleaguered with the responsibility for a mountain of trash coming at him or her on a daily basis it appears to offer a quick fix solution, with little or no modification of the existing infrastructure for picking up trash. For a politician with citizens yelling at him or her because they don't want to live near a proposed landfill, or the expansion of an old one, the modern waste-to-energy incinerator looks like a perfect political escape plan.

It is only when one spends time looking below the surface appeal of these facilities that one realises the huge backward step they represent, environmentally, socially, economically and from the point of view of moving towards a sustainable society.

I will discuss the arguments against building more trash incinerators under seven headings.

They are:
1. Toxic emissions
1.1 Hydrogen chloride is formed.
1.2 Nitric oxide is generated.
1.3 Toxic metals are released.
1.3.1 Mercury, a highly problematic pollutant, is difficult to control.
1.4 Dioxins, Furans and other by-products of combustion are formed.
1.4.1 Post combustion formation of dioxin.
1.4.2 The fly ash dioxin problem.
1.4.3 No continuous monitoring of dioxins possible.
1.4.4 Rising concern about current dioxin levels.
1.4.5 Dioxin emissions easily captured in food chains.
1.4.6 Ireland.
1.4.7 Advances in one country do not always translate to success in others.
1.5 End-of-the-pipe control
1.6 Modifications to counteract one pollutant can lead to increases in others.
1.6.1. UK.
2. Ash disposal.
2.1 Fly ash hazard often obscured.
2.2 Ash represents a Catch-22 for the incineration industry.
3. Economic costs.
3.1. Incinerators are formidably expensive.
3.2. Very few jobs are created for this massive economic investment.
3.3 Most of the money invested in the incinerator leaves the community.
3.4 Loss of capital is acute in developing economies.
3.5 Taxpayers usually find out true costs when it is too late.
3.5.1 Flow control outlawed in the US.
4. The waste of energy involved.
4.1. Modern incinerators do produce saleable energy.
4.2 Reality versus Public relations.
4.2.1 Consider these simple points:
4.3 Recycling saves more energy than incineration yields.
4.4 A larger vision is needed.
5. Public opposition.
5.1. In the US incineration is the most unpopular technology since nuclear power.
5.2 US development at a standstill.
5.3 Opposition in other countries.
5.3.1 Germany.
5.3.2 France.
5.3.3 Bangladesh.
5.4 The dangers of ignoring public opinion.
5.5 Look at more than one option.
5.6 Even a true believer should not lead with incineration.
5.7 The non-burn alternatives are more popular.
6. A few words on the alternatives.
6.1 Landfills.
6.2 The importance of composting.
6.3 Integrated waste management.
6.4 Five principles.
7. Sustainability.
7.1 Cheap fossil fuels conceal our non-sustainability.
7.2 Incineration is a wasted opportunity.
7.3 Forces behind overconsumption.
7.4 Fighting the dominant paradigm.
7.5 Community building.

8. Conclusion

Read Dr. Conett’s entire presentation here.

Tuesday, October 01, 1996

19960900 The Five Most Dangerous Myths About Recycling

The Five Most Dangerous Myths About Recycling

Institute for Local Self-Reliance

2425 18th Street, NW · Washington, DC 20009

202-232-4108

bplatt AT ilsr.org

September 1996

MYTH #1: We can recycle only 25 to 30% of our solid wastes.(1)

FACT: Twenty five percent was considered a maximum level in 1985. Today it should be considered a minimum, not a maximum. By continuing to build the reuse, recycling, and composting infrastructure and integrating the best features from the best programs, local and state, the nation as a whole can achieve 50% recycling by 2005.

[…]

MYTH #2: Recycling is more expensive than trash collection and disposal.(8)

FACT: When designed right, recycling programs are cost-competitive with trash collection and disposal.

[…]

MYTH #3: Landfills and incinerators are more cost-effective and environmentally sound than recycling options.(15)

FACT: Recycling programs, when designed properly, are cost-competitive with landfills and incinerators, and provide net pollution prevention benefits. Recycling materials not only avoids the pollution that would be generated through landfilling and incinerating these, but also reduces the environmental burden of virgin materials extraction and manufacturing processes.

[…]

MYTH #4: Landfills are significant job generators for rural communities.(19)

FACT: Recycling creates many more jobs for rural and urban communities than landfill and incineration disposal options.

[…]

MYTH #5: The marketplace works best in solving solid waste management problems; no public-sector intervention is needed.(23)

FACT: The solid waste system has always operated under public sector rules and always will. Currently these rules encourage unchecked product consumption and disposal. Public-sector intervention is needed to shape a system in which materials are produced, used, discarded, and recovered efficiently. We need to change the rules so that disposal alternatives; source reduction, reuse, recycling, and composting, operate in a level playing field. Even after we level the playing field, favoring disposal alternatives makes sense because of its many community and public sector benefits.

Read the entire article here: The Five Most Dangerous Myths About Recycling

For questions or comments, contact:

Brenda Platt, Director, Materials Recovery, Institute for Local Self-Reliance

(Brenda Platt) bplatt AT ilsr.org

19960900 The Five Most Dangerous Myths About Recycling

_____

Monday, April 22, 1996

19960422 "The Happy Colors" The Dream of the Pink Zebras 04.22.1996 Binder # 15 v. #4.0095 07.1995 –

19960422 The Happy Colors Binder #15

19960422 "The Happy Colors" The Dream of the Pink Zebras 04.22.1996 Binder # 15 v. #4.0095 07.1995 –

http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/1996/04/19960422-happy-colors-dream-of-pink.html

"The Happy Colors" The Dream of the Pink Zebras 04.22.1996 Binder # 15 v. #4.0095 07.1995 – 04/22/1996

"Life has a value only when it has something valuable as its object". HEGEL, Introduction to Philosophy of History (1852)

"We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving". NIETZSCHE, "On Reading and Writing" _ Thus spoke Zarathustra (1883-1892)

"Always develop solutions to challenges that can withstand testing conditions that closely approximate reality". GRANDPA DAYHOFF, "The Frozen Chicken Test" (11.1994)

...of which reminds me of a story that has been in my head for years... a love story called:

"The Happy Colors"

© Kevin Dayhoff April 22, 1996

A sultry August ocean breeze drooled over them as they stood poised at the railing on the balcony of the large art-deco condominium overlooking a vast ocean beyond. Far below little people and cars scurried about putting away the remains of another day at the beach. The cries of tired children, squeals of laughter and the banter of parental instructions all jumbled together with the calls of the sea gulls and an ocean's heartbeat pumped waves that crashed upon the shore. It was music written by the Great Composer in the sky. A piece called "The Happy Colors".

The colors were to be remembered so well. The breeze ruffling her long hair ever so delicately. The sparkle of her eyes as she gazed at the deep azure expanse of the ocean below. The deep maroon of the setting sun as it echoed off her glass of red wine held so deftly in her seasoned, thoughtful fingers. A warm smile sprung from her inviting crimson lips, brightening her face which reflected the flickering yellow candle light. A lone white candle stood sentry, melting on to a black tablecloth that maintained the remains of abandoned china and dessert for two. The cream of her graceful gown mimicked the creamy black russian captured in the solid glass grasped in his deeply creased and weathered hands. His graying hair contrasted with the dark black of his finely tailored black tuxedo.

Their conversation drifted from the previous discussion of how they had met, and parted, in their childhood years. Perhaps they had even been lovers in a previous life. The years had marched by. And although they had lived separately for all these years, they had never left each other. They hadn't regretted their lives apart, but, then again, they did. Neither had known the other was to be at this function. This meeting again, for the first time, all over again; it was of serendipitous happenstance. As wave upon wave crashed and pounded upon the shore below, their eyes remained transfixed upon one another, oblivious to the party's banter, as their hearts crashed and pounded in unison in their warm chests. A grandfather clock dutifully stood sentry and watched the crowd beyond, and kept them away, as it quietly announced the time, seemingly, only to them...Midnight.

A stimulating intellectual discourse ensued. Alice B. Toklas was instrumental to whatever it was, that Gertrude Stein became. F. Scott Fitzgerald needed the catharsis of Zelda's being in order to create. Nietzsche fleshed out the paragraphs of their life but Hegel defined their meaning and Sartre gave them the punctuation. They had built their lives, their own way, and though they had had their shortcomings here and there, they were happy with the lives they had lived, albeit apart. They had made the best choices that they could make, not that they always had the criteria necessary in order to make the choices. They had made their choices in life because they had to make the choices. They had soared in hostile air. In a life of no inherent meaning, they had created a meaning. Their meaning. Now, older and wiser, the works that they had created, the thoughts they had promoted, the decisions they had made; were all the foundation of the work that laid ahead, that needed to be done.

They continued on to a poem that had marked their decisions in life, by a sage author they had long since forgotten....Does one build a fence at the top of the chasm of life or provide for an ambulance below?

At that, the handsome young waiter tentatively inquired about their needs.... They had none. Then again. Maybe one more drink before they left the party and parted company once again. To again do what they had to do. Because it is what it is, this life of their's.

"Yes, I'll have another black russian for me and a glass of red wine for the lady. Thank you".

The jazz quartet played a soft number in the background as the party in her honor grew quiet, reflecting about their chance meeting. Many smiled, some mused philosophically, others miffed jealously. Meanwhile, on the balcony, the lovers discussed their latest endeavors as they entwined in dance to the soft caresses of the music, oblivious to the quiet banter beyond.

They danced so softly together. Her hand ran longingly through his graying hair. Her long hair blowing across his eyes. The sun dipping below a wanting horizon. The sea gulls sang their good night praises of yet another great day in a great life.

The wise grandfather clock called to them that it was, indeed, time to go. They wanted this moment to never end. As the waiter appeared at the door of the balcony, as they held each others hand so tightly and gazed into each others eyes, as they whispered how much they were in lover and how glad they were that they had found each other again.

They a paused at the railing of the 17th floor and gazed into the sun's remains of the day and promised that they'd never part again... At that;


they climbed upon the railing, and jumped.


Grandpa Dayhoff 04.22.1996

"The more absurd life is, the more insupportable death is". JEAN-PAUL SARTRE, The Words (1964)

"Man's 'progress' is but a gradual discovery that his questions have no meaning". SAINT-EXUPERY, The Wisdom of the Sands (1948)

"Life has to be given a meaning because of the obvious fact that it has no meaning". HENRY MILLER, "Creative Death", The Wisdom of the Heart (1941)

"Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve". ERICH FROMM, Man for Himself (1947)

To be an artist is to jump...to jump from the comforts and confines...from behind the railing...then experience the free-for-all-fall of the intellectual, artistic unknown and document the meaning, your own meaning that which you and you alone, give this existence.

This piece has been in my head for years. I have not a clue as to what "the jump" is all about. Perhaps I should have left "the jump" in my head, but I had grown tired of the space it was taking up. Perhaps, "the jump" is an existential artistic exercise and can be interpreted as affirming. Anyway, I've always gotten a kick out of the incongruous, Hemingway-twist ending. I guess I'm a bit worried that many will find this piece disturbing. Well, it is what it is. I think perhaps the piece is allegorical. It's art. It's done. Now I have room for another piece.....Mr. Eaton would have liked this I'll bet....

Grandpa Dayhoff 04.22.1996

"The Happy Colors" The Dream of the Pink Zebras 04.22.1996 Binder # 15 v. #4.0095 07.1995 –
Kevin Dayhoff, a slave to the masters of the page - the little soldiers in my life – words

Kevin Dayhoff Art http://kevindayhoffart.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, June 14, 1995

Ubiquitous 'mean streets' are journalists' freeways By MIKE ROYKO

June 14, 1995 Ubiquitous 'mean streets' are journalists' freeways By MIKE ROYKO http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1995-06-14/news/1995165177_1_streets-newsday-new-york


America's streets are in terrible shape. And I'm not talking about potholes, busted curbs or blinky street lights.

No, the problem is that so many of our streets are really mean. This meanness is sweeping the country and spreading to foreign lands.

I made this discovery recently after hearing a TV war correspondent refer to snipers shooting people on "the mean streets of Sarajevo."

It seemed to me that I had read or heard the phrase "mean streets" before.

Using a computer service, I searched for the words "mean streets" in dozens of newspapers.

The search covered only the first five months of this year. But the results were frightening. Here are just a few of the mean streets that were found.


++++++++++++



Kevin Dayhoff Art: http://www.kevindayhoff.com/




New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/


Scribd Kevin Dayhoff: http://www.scribd.com/kdayhoff
Kevin Dayhoff's YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/kevindayhoff

Kevin Dayhoff Banana Stems: http://kevindayhoff.tumblr.com/ 

Google profile: https://profiles.google.com/kevindayhoff/ 


Kevin Earl Dayhoff Art www.kevindayhoff.com: Travel, art, artists, authors, books, newspapers, media, writers and writing, journalists and journalism, reporters and reporting, music, culture, opera... Ad maiorem Dei gloriam inque hominum salutem. “Deadline U.S.A.” 1952. Ed Hutcheson: “That's the press, baby. The press! And there's nothing you can do about it. Nothing!” - See more at: http://kevindayhoffart.blogspot.com/#sthash.4HNLwtfd.dpuf

Tuesday, December 31, 1991

19911231 Environmental Affairs Advisory Board End Of The Year Report

ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS ADVISORY BOARD

END‑OF‑THE‑YEAR REPORT

1991

EAAB MEMBERSHIP

Mr. Franklin L. Grabowski,

Vice‑Chairman Dr. Arthur Peck

Mr. Richard Filling

Mr. Bradley Yohe

Mr. Neil Ridgely

Ms. Gwenn Bockelmann

Mr. Paul Hering, Chairman

MEETING STATISTICS

The EAAB held official meetings eleven times during the year (There was no record of a meeting in May).

BOARD MEMBERS TERMS

The EAAB was created by Resolution of the Board of County Commissioners in 1991.

LEGAL/REGULATORY ISSUES

Forest Conservation Act

Due to this state legislation, the Carroll County Forest Conservation Ordinance was created. The EAAB held subcommittee meetings to write the FCO, for Commissioner consideration.

REZONING REQUESTS

The EAAB reviewed two rezoning requests.

ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS AWARD PRESENTATIONS

Individual Citizen Catagory: Mr. Ellsworth Acker

Institutional Category: St. George’s Church

Business/Industry Category: Phoenix Recycling

COUNTY PROJECTS ‑ STAFF REPORTS PRESENTED TO THE EAAB

Tipping Fee (Presented by Mr. James Slater in February)

Stormwater Management Review Fees (Presented by Mr. James Slater in February)

Regional Four‑County Solid Waste Study (Presented by Mr. James Slater in February)

Clean Water Act ‑ Section 404 (Presented by Dr. Arthur Peck in March)

County Golf Course Proposals (Presented by Ms. Catherine Rappe in March)

Water Conservation Update (Presented by Ms. Catherine Rappe in March)

Wetlands Demonstration Project (Presented by Mr. James Slater in March & August)

Recycling Update (Presented by Mr. Dwight Copenhaver in March)

Forest Conservation Act (Presented by Mr. Neil Ridgely in April and June)

Water Resource Management Standards (Presented by Ms. Catherine Rappe in April)

Stormwater Management Ordinance (Presented by Ms. Kristin Barmoy in June)

Forest Conservation Act (Presented by Mr. James Slater and Mr. Neil Ridgely in July)

Waste & Hazardous Material Management (Presented by Mr. James Slater in August)

Solid Waste Management (Presented by Mr. James Slater in August)

Forest Conservation Ordinance (Presented by Mr. Neil Ridgely in August, October, November & December)

Reclassification of County Trout Streams (Presented by Mr. Thomas Devilbiss in September)

Nat\c:\wp51\text\eaab_dir.try\reports\rept.91

There was no Year End Report for 1991. This report was compiled 12/8/98 using meeting minutes.

Tuesday, March 13, 1990

United Art Workers: "Da Ma Da Play" at Maryland Art Place, March 13th - April 7th 1990




"Da Ma Da Play" at Maryland Art Place, March 13th - April 7th 1990. A collaborative temporal room/environmental mixed media construction on the walls of the "14 Carat Cabaret" in the basement of MAP.
 

A detail of this project was photographed by John Sosnowsky. John then further worked with this detail photograph, coloring it and then used it for the cover of his second album "Rhythm of the Worlds.” UAW #2


Cathy Leaycraft, John Sosnowsky, Derek Neal, Kevin Dayhoff, Dan Shapiro, Linda Van Hart, and Patti Anne Battaglia

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Kevin Dayhoff Art: http://www.kevindayhoff.com/
New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/


Scribd Kevin Dayhoff: http://www.scribd.com/kdayhoff
Kevin Dayhoff's YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/kevindayhoff

Kevin Dayhoff Banana Stems: http://kevindayhoff.tumblr.com/ 

Google profile: https://profiles.google.com/kevindayhoff/ 


Kevin Earl Dayhoff Art www.kevindayhoff.com: Travel, art, artists, authors, books, newspapers, media, writers and writing, journalists and journalism, reporters and reporting, music, culture, opera... Ad maiorem Dei gloriam inque hominum salutem. “Deadline U.S.A.” 1952. Ed Hutcheson: “That's the press, baby. The press! And there's nothing you can do about it. Nothing!” - See more at: http://kevindayhoffart.blogspot.com/#sthash.4HNLwtfd.dpuf

Monday, September 12, 1988

19880900 To Burn or Not to Burn an interview with Neil Seldman

Recycling is both environmentally sound and economically sensible

An Interview with Neil Seldman, by Robert Gilman

One of the articles in The Next Agenda (IC#19)

Autumn 1988, Page 22

Copyright (c)1988, 1997 by Context Institute | To order this issue ...

Neil Seldman is the President of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (2425 18th Street NW, Washington, DC 20009) and a consultant to cities and citizen groups around the country who are looking for sensible solutions to the growing garbage crisis.

Robert: People aren't nearly as aware as they could be about the waste crisis, in spite of all the media coverage it's starting to get.

Neil: That's right. We've all heard of the garbage barge from Islip. But I wonder how many people have heard of the ash barge from Philadelphia? The material on the Islip barge was municipal waste, technically commercial waste. On Philadelphia's barge the material is waste incinerator ash, not from a modern mass burn plant, but from an old time incinerator going back 80 or 90 years, a garbage destructor. The amount of garbage on the Islip barge was 3,000 tons, but the ash on the Philadelphia barge weighed 15,000 tons. And how long were they at sea? The Islip barge four months, the Philadelphia barge twenty-three months and it's still on the high seas. Where did the Islip barge go? It went from Islip down the East coast to the Caribbean and back to Brooklyn, where the gargage was finally burned and its remains sent to Islip. Now, the Philadelphia barge has been down through all of those states, into the Caribbean, out to West Africa, back to Philadelphia, and back out to West Africa again.

Robert: It's very curious that the media hasn't picked up on this.

Neil: It shows how you can't trust the media. You must go very deeply into these issues, because these issues are going to determine your future directly in your city. And your small town. These problems have to be solved within three years. Right now most of the authorities in the United States want to turn what was on the Islip barge into what is on the Philadelphia barge. They want to burn the garbage and dispose of the ash. And the story is, look how much more difficult it is to get rid of the ash than the garbage!

Robert: I understand this is all coming to a head because so many municipal areas are basically running out of landfill.

Neil: Absolutely. And that's actually understating the problem, because 8 years ago you could put garbage in the ground on the East coast for $5 a ton, and now it's a $100 a ton for landfill space. One of the ironies is that throughout the 1970's New Jersey tried to keep Pennsylvania's garbage out of New Jersey. They went all the way to the Supreme Court and were eventually told they couldn't do it because of the Interstate Commerce Clause. Right now, guess where New Jersey's garbage is going. Into Pennsylvania. That's how quickly and profoundly the situation has changed.

And it's not because of a lack of landfill space. It's there theoretically, but politically it's become impossible because of the incredible growth of cities, towns and suburbs. Literally no one's neighborhood is unaffected. And people don't want to see their property devalued tremendously, their kids' health risked, their environment destroyed.

Robert: So the alternatives are recycling - or mass burn.

Read the entire interview here: To Burn Or Not To Burn

All contents copyright (c)1988, 1997 by Context Institute

Please send comments to webmaster

Last Updated 29 June 2000.

URL: http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC19/Seldman.htm

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