January 26, 2010
Hanover
NSRWA lecture will address recycling and other issues
Many of the affects trash has on the economy go unnoticed, largely because of the lack of knowledge most people have on the topic.
“More than half the stuff our residents and businesses throw in the trash could be recycled or composted,” said Claire Sullivan of South Shore Recycling Cooperative. “Instead, it is buried or burned, at great expense to our towns and our environment.” Some of these items include glass bottles and jars, paper, plastic, and even the aluminum used to wrap Hershey’s Kisses!
Sullivan will be teaming up with Patti Howard of Covanta SEMASS for the fourth lecture of the NSRWA’s Water Watch Lecture Series, held at the South Shore Natural Science Center in Norwell.
The lecture will be held Wednesday, Feb. 3, at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
Their goal is to inform the community about what happens to trash after it’s thrown away, and the major problems the economy could face because of it.
The North and South Rivers Watershed Association (NSRWA) organized this free lecture series with the goal of introducing attendees to different issues and new ideas.
Samantha Woods, Executive Director of the NSRWA, said she contacted Sullivan in October about the lecture and if she’d be available to talk.
“We have worked and participated together in a number of public events over the past few years,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan also showed her appreciation towards Patti Howard, and was excited to be working with her.
“She is an avid recycling advocate and a very funny speaker,” Sullivan said of Howard. “We work on many of the same issues and are both fascinated by trash.”
So why is it so important to learn about something as general as trash? Sullivan expressed the importance of local residents taking action on how they deal with waste.
“Trash that goes to a combustion facility becomes electricity, carbon dioxide, water vapor and ash,” she said. “The emissions are much cleaner that those from coal.”
The positive effects that recycling has on a given community are many, but what happens when people don’t recycle?
“It is using up finite natural resources, creating vast amounts of air and water pollution in the process of extracting and manufacturing those resources into consumer products, using the products for an average of six months and discarding them,” she said, “ It’s a one-way street to destruction.”
At the lecture, both Sullivan and Howard will speak about more ways the community can take action to help the environment. They will discuss the Fishing for Energy Program, Keep Mercury from Rising program, and the Bottle Bill Campaign.
These three programs are steps towards helping the economy; for example, the “Bottle Bill Campaign” requires beverage companies to return 80 percent of the unclaimed bottle and can deposits to the state, and the Fishing for Energy Program provides a place for the fishing community to dispose of old or derelict fishing gear they recover while at sea at no cost.
The issue of trash and its effect on the environment is huge, dire and important, Sullivan said.
“[The Earth has] already been affected, read any issue of National Geographic,” Sullivan said. “We’re wrecking the place.”
The South Shore Natural Science Center is at 48 Jacobs Lane in Norwell. For more information, call (781) 659-8168 or check out the Web site http://www.nsrwa.org/
http://www.wickedlocal.com/hanover/highlight/x1920340322/NSRWA-lecture-will-address-recycling-and-other-issues
