Invigorate every day with the purified taste of the world’s most delicious water. Splash Into Life with the refreshing, crisp taste of DASANI®.
— From the Dasani.com website, November 18, 2018
Last January, the CEO of the Coca-Cola Company,James Quincey, wrote an article on the World Economic Forum website, entitled “Moving towards a world without waste.”
When you woke up this morning, you may have spent about an hour getting ready for the day. You brushed your teeth, showered, and got dressed. Feeling hungry, perhaps you made some breakfast and watched the morning news. Some of you sent children off to school, while others responded to emails that arrived overnight.
No matter who you are or where you live, one thing is certain: in that hour of starting your day, an estimated 900 metric tons of plastic waste entered our oceans—the mass of nearly 600 mid-size sedans…
If we can believe the CEO of the Coca-Cola Company, and wanted expand a bit on his claim, during the next 24 hours, plastic waste equal to 14,400 mid-size sedans will enter the oceans. Or, to expand on the idea a bit further, between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, the world’s oceans will be inundated with a mass of plastic larger than all of the Toyota Prius cars sold worldwide in 2017. (355,000 cars.)
In 1964, the world was producing about 15 million tons of petroleum-based plastic. By 2014, the production had increased to 311 million tons. But this is only a small part of the global picture. The world’s packaging problems are actually a symptom of a much more serious condition: we’re using up all of the earth’s resources at a ever-increasing rate.
From James Qincey’s article:
In fact, the use of natural resources globally rose at twice the rate of the population during the 20th century. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, global materials use is expected to reach 88.6 billion tons in 2017 – three times more than the amount used 1970.
It’s not only people toting Dasani bottles who are helping to pollute our planet. Waste and trash are everywhere. Even in a small rural community like Pagosa Springs.
Mr. Quincey’s article goes on to suggest that “recycling” is the key to his company’s impacts on the world’s trash problem. He mentions that Dasani bottles, and Coke bottles, now use a percentage of plant material in their plastic content. (Thus, the little green logo on the bottles, reading “PlantBottle.”)
But as we now are coming to realize in 2018, recycling has its own huge challenges.
Some Pagosa residents might think, meanwhile, that “recycling” has nothing to do with the potholes in our neighborhood roads. They would be wrong. The web of waste extends into every aspect of our modern existence. It extends into the halls of local government, as well.
I began this editorial series with a quote from a World Bank website article, “Report Shows Alarming Rise in Amount, Costs of Garbage.”
A new report from the World Bank’s Urban Development department estimates the amount of municipal solid waste (MSW) will rise from the current 1.3 billion tonnes per year to 2.2 billion tonnes per year by 2025. Much of the increase will come in rapidly growing cities in developing countries.
This article was talking about actual, physical trash — not the more ephemeral waste that sometimes occurs in the halls of government. But I want to stick to the topic. Physical trash, and the overuse of the world’s resources.
We’ve been covering, here in the Daily Post, the continuing effort by the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners to build a new $19 million Sheriff’s facility. Of course, that’s $19 million that would not be spent on other things. Following the defeat of Ballot Measure 1A, the BOCC has been talking about cutting our Road & Bridge budget to fund a smaller — but nevertheless new, and very expensive — jail.
Our Daily Post readers might be tired of hearing me mention that we already have a jail… and that we already have a Sheriff’s office. But try as I might, I can’t stop talking about how obstinate the BOCC has been, consistently refusing to even consider the idea of remodeling their existing courthouse. Refusing to consider the value of “recycling” one of the largest buildings in the community, for continued use by the government for which it was designed.
So we’re going to talk a little bit more about recycling. And waste.
Here’s a chart created by Salon.com that paints a certain picture about waste, in connection with a 2016 article called “America is a wasteland.” The US states colored in reddish tones have “above average” amounts of trash, per person, now sitting in landfills. The states colored in green have below-average amounts of garbage, per capita, in their landfills.
As we see, only two states — California and Nevada — have more trash per person, collected in landfills, than Colorado. Our state has collected about twice the amount per capita, compared to Texas, and about nine times the amount found in Idaho.
This overall picture is somewhat deceiving, however, because some states ship large amounts of garbage to landfills in neighboring states.
We wrote here in the Daily Post about the recent policy changes in China and the effect on America’s recycling industry. Prior to 2016, China had been accepting and processing about half the world’s recyclable plastic, paper and metal. Then, rather abruptly, everything changed.
From a July 2018 article by Dominique Mosbergen in the Huffington Post:
About a year ago, however, China abruptly announced its intention to close its borders to this trash influx. The country notified the World Trade Organization that it would be banning the import of 24 categories of solid waste, including several kinds of scrap plastic and mixed paper. It also demanded that other waste materials, like cardboard and scrap metal, have only 0.5 percent contamination from food and other sources ― a standard that American recyclers have said is “impossible” to meet…
The following chart might help dramatize the impacts on America’s plastic recycling efforts:
Prior to this change, Americans had been recycling about one-third of their household trash. Without a destination for all our once-recycled packaging, however, our landfills are going to fill at a much faster rate.
Opening a new landfill, meanwhile, has become enormously expensive, due to increased environmental requirements. Shutting down a fully utilized landfill is likewise not a cheap proposition, with its own set of environmental protections in place.
Which brings us around to a nagging question. If the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners decide to use millions of dollars in local taxes to build a new County Courthouse… will the existing County Courthouse, built partly prior to 1928 and partly in 1990, end up in the County Landfill?