Articles from the Neighborhood Newsletter

by Steve Johnson (Jason Street)

I read a statistic analogy recently that created a dramatic image:

Enough office waste paper is thrown away each year to build a 12-foot wall between Los Angeles and New York City. Naturally, I envisioned our little corner of the US map, and wondered how our neighborhood fit into that picture. While we wait for spring to turn the natural world green, what’s happening in our own community? Are we more or less “green” than our neighbors, and how do we compare to other cities and towns in the rest of the world? I wonder how efficient or wasteful we are as a society, and how much we give and take from the planet. I consider Arlington to be progressive, and we’re in good company. One recent poll rated Boston the third greenest city in America, largely because of the efforts to promote bicycle travel, and the restoration of green space over the Big Dig. Cambridge, far ahead in bike travel, was ranked number six, and San Francisco number one. But what about the rest of us who can’t seem to avoid using cars?

One measure of our presence is called a carbon footprint. It’s a simplistic assessment of how one contributes carbon residue to the environment based on consumption of fossil fuel, or related by-products created using fossil fuels. Typically, these calculations are based on estimated household spending for utilities, appliances, travel, and locally produced food and goods, and are not very precise. Even so, the results are telling: the US average is shamefully higher than the rest of the world at 20.4 tons per person, compared to 11 tons on average for those in “industrialized” nations. Maybe I’m cheap, but my number came in at 4.5, which is just above the entire world’s average of 4. So, if we assume that three quarters of the roughly 42,000 people in Arlington are also commuters with similar habits to mine, then we as a community add 126,000 tons of carbon dioxide to our surroundings.

The ways to quantify our consumption habits are infinite; I could fill this issue with statistics and graphic illustrations of the waste stream. Of course there are many more factors to be considered; in fact everything we do, eat, create, or consume has some effect. So, to grasp just one tangible piece of the puzzle, let’s consider the wastepaper trail. It travels from those blue bins at the curb to one of three processing centers in Massachusetts, to be transformed into cereal and cracker boxes, book covers, and game boards. Massachusetts was an early leader in the growing recycle/reuse service industry, and the more than three hundred participating programs recycle over 500,000 tons of material annually. Finally, what’s good for business is also good for the environment!

Here are some more encouraging stats:

• As of 2006, 53.4% of all the paper consumed in the U.S. (53.5 million tons!) was recovered for recycling, and the ratio is continually increasing.
• 86% of Americans have access to curbside or drop-off paper recycling programs.
• One ton of recycled paper saves 3,700 pounds of lumber and 24,000 gallons of water.
• One ton of recycled paper uses: 64% less energy, 50% less water, and creates 74% less air pollution and 5 times more jobs than one ton of paper products from virgin wood.

Enough with the numbers—what’s really impressive is the progress made so far, and the potential for even greater success with widespread participation. It’s really easy to adopt routines for a more responsible ecological lifestyle. Like getting into the habit of clicking into a seat belt, it doesn’t require a big change. Cooperation and education are the keys. The day-to-day decisions by individual consumers and businesses on where to live and drive and shop are what will restore balance to our environment. In our own neighborhood, the list of common household items that can be recycled easily is extensive, and growing. Check the recycling flyer or the town website (listed below); there may be many things you didn’t realize are retrievable. Here are some useful web links:

http://www.town.arlington.ma.us/Public_Documents/ArlingtonMA_DPW/index
http://www.magnet.state.ma.us/dep/dephome.htm
http://www.state.ma.us/dep/recycle/consumer2.htm
http://www.state.ma.us/envir/eoea.htm
http://www.wastecap.org
http://www.massrecycle.org
http://earth911.org

Tags: environment, green, recycle, The Leaping Issue 15(1)

This entry was posted on Monday, March 10th, 2008 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Act Locally. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.