The article in the url below from yesterday’s NYT is a lot of fun:
“Where does all the trash go? Karin Landsberg, 42, a self-described ''eco-geek'' in Seattle, was so curious that she invited researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology into her home last month to fish 12 items out of her garbage and recycling bins -- a can of beans, a compact fluorescent light bulb -- and tag them with small electronic tracking devices. Her trash is now on its journey to the place where it goes to die or be reborn.”
Karin’s trash is part of a larger study MIT is conducting on 3,000 pieces of trash that have been thrown away, mostly in Seattle. The aim is to track the trash as it is processed over a period of the next three months to see where it travels and how long it takes to get there. The broader goal of the study is to try and influence human behavior:
“One purpose of the project, said Carlo Ratti, director of the lab, is to give people a concrete sense of their impact on the environment in a way that might lead them to change their habits.”
I would be more interested to know what percentage of the items that are placed in recycle bins are actually recycled and how many of them still end up in a landfill:
“Other factors are also in play in the travel of recyclables like metal and plastic. Among them are price fluctuations that may make it cheaper for a company to ditch items than to recycle them, contamination that makes a can or paper useless, and human error in sorting or transporting material.”
The project is being under-written by the company Waste Management, which is interested in the logistics of moving trash around the country and avoiding unnecessary waste in waste processing!
Have a good weekend.
David
David
Bill Werther & David Chandler
Strategic Corporate Social Responsibility
© Sage Publications, 2006
Once It's Tossed, Does Your Trash Take the Tunnel Or the Bridge?
By MIREYA NAVARRO
1240 words
17 September 2009
Late Edition - Final
16
