NEWSWASTE & RECYCLING

Hundreds of people around the U.S. have joined Stiv Wilson's petition on Change.org asking the National Park Service to re-instate its plastic bottle ban in the Grand Canyon. But he's not the only person angered enough to launch a petition. Independently of Stiv, others have come to Change.org to launch their own campaigns and are now coordinating their voices. Here are what the petition creators say: 

Deborah Patterson, Artist and Art Teacher, Baltimore, Maryland (Deborah's petition)

Over the years, I have signed many, many petitions to protect and support the environment, but this is the first one I have ever started. When I read that Coca-Cola had actually threatened to reduce or eliminate their support for the National Park system if the Grand Canyon banned the sale of disposable water bottles, I knew I had to do something.  Our national parks are owned by the citizens of the United States, whose taxes help maintain them.  The corporate world has no right to exercise this kind of coercion, which in schools is called "bullying."  At whatever level and in whatever form it needs to stop, and the only way to stop it is to stand up to it.

Devin Saez, Architect, Los Angeles, California (Devin's petition)

Hundreds of people around the U.S. have joined Stiv Wilson's petition on Change.org asking the National Park Service to re-instate its plastic bottle ban in the Grand Canyon. Signers are worried about the effects of plastic litter and pollution, and want the National Park Service to protect the beauty and wildlife of the Grand Canyon, one of America's greatest natural treasures. They are also angered that corporate interests, namely Coca-Cola's desire to keep making profits on bottled water, could take precedent over the public's interest in doing what's best for the park. Below is a statement from one petition signer we'd like to highlight. You can see many others by looking at the petition.

Wayne L. Hamilton, PhD. served America's national parks for more than two decades, as a research scientist at Yellowstone National Park and as a ranger at Zion National Park, among other positions. Since retiring from the Park Service in 1996, Wayne has worked as a research scientist in Baja California. His father, Warren F. Hamilton, was a Grand Canyon National Park Ranger between 1933 and 1940, and served as Superintendent of Everglades National Park and Zion National Park, and as the National Park Service's Assistant Regional Director of the Western Regional Office.

Post by Wayne L. Hamilton:

Hundreds of people around the U.S. have joined Stiv Wilson's petition on Change.org asking the National Park Service to re-instate its plastic bottle ban in the Grand Canyon. Signers are worried about the effects of plastic litter and pollution, and want the National Park Service to protect the beauty and wildlife of the Grand Canyon, one of America's greatest natural treasures. They are also angered that corporate interests, namely Coca-Cola's desire to keep making profits on bottled water, could take precedent over the public's interest in doing what's best for the park. Below is a statement from one petition signer we'd like to highlight. You can find many others by looking at the petition.

Erica Donnelly, Marine Biologist:

"I am a marine scientist in Santa Cruz, California who researches plastic ingestion in birds including Northern Fulmars, Albatrosses, and Shearwaters. We find plastic fragments from a variety of sources (both local and non-local) inside of bird stomachs.  Almost every bird we examine contains internal plastic that can effect the animal directly (internal blockages, abrasions, etc.) or indirectly (chemical toxicity from pollutants that adhere to plastics).

Seabirds are just one example of how are extensive use of disposable plastics is impacting wildlife. Micro-plastic infiltrate our ground water, water ways, and soil creating a national health issue, not just a localized problem on the coast.  We must get to the source of the issue and curtail our dependency on single use, disposable plastics.  Please help make a step in the right direction by banning plastic bottles."

You can join Erica and hundreds of others by signing Stiv Wilson's petition today.

By Candice Norcross, a resident of Grand Rapids, MI and creator of a Change.org petition to protect the Thornapple River

Forty-one volunteers arrived at Lincoln Park in Ada, Michigan for the annual River Clean-Up Day. The early risers pulled blue shirts over their hoodies and gathered at the covered bridge, ready to scour the banks for garbage. Joggers — with knowing smiles — watched as we carried the canoes to the water's edge and started on our way.

I had never been to this particular river before, as it's about 10 miles from my own corner of Grand Rapids. However, I recently read several news articles in regards to the Gerald R. Ford International Airport and its stormwater dilemma. I was inspired to launch a petition on Change.org to protect the river from the airport's new proposal to use the river as a dump site for de-icing fluid.

Last week, activists working on the campaign to permanently clean up New Jersey's Ringwood State Park got major news. At a packed community hearing, state officials backed away from plans to transfer the ownership of contaminated areas of the park back to Ford Motor Company, responding to the campaign on Change.org to keep the park in public hands.

Ford's efforts to gain control of areas where the car company dumped toxic waste are now indefinitely off the table—making room for the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to issue a legally binding plan for contamination in the park.

Don't want the Yellow Pages dumped at your doorstep? Great news. If you live in San Francisco, starting May 2012, you won't get one.

Last week, in an overwhelming 9-1 vote, San Francisco's Board of Supervisors passed the nation's first-ever Yellow Pages opt-in ordinance, a program that could save San Franciscans $1 million taxpayer dollars every year and end millions of pounds of paper waste.

The phone directory industry, fearful of the groundbreaking precedent this ordinance sets, lobbied against it intensely. But 11,000 Change.org members, more than 1,000 of who are San Francisco residents, helped counter their efforts with a swell of grassroots support. This petition, backed by the legislation's sponsor Supervisor David Chiu, became part of the legislative record during the heated debate of the proposal. In addition, PhonebookFree SF, a grassroots group of citizens, presented it when they tried to return 1,500 unwanted phonebooks to AT&T's San Francisco headquarters in March (it turned out even AT&T didn't want the phonebooks, and neither did the local recycling facility).

This victory will bring San Francisco closer to meeting its goal of zero waste by 2020, and is an important benchmark for consumer choice in our digital age.

That doesn't mean the phone directory industry, which makes billions of dollars of advertising revenue printing books that often go unopened, will go quietly into the night. In Seattle, the industry sued the city for passing a less stringent mandatory "opt-out" measure. This lawsuit, however, has been unsuccessful so far. What's more, barely a week since the opt-out program took effect, more than 100,o00 people have already decided they can live with the heavy books. Even The New Yorker recently weighed in on what they have dubbed the city's "phonebook wars."

Just when you thought the disaster in Japan might help put the breaks on dangerous nuclear projects in the States, it turns out a little-known oversight panel has approved what one spokesperson has called “a major milestone” for the U.S. nuclear industry.

If a decision rendered in January by the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission is allowed to stand, 36 states could soon start transporting nuclear waste across the country to a permanent storage site in Andrews County, west Texas. Sources close to the case also report that waste could be shipped to the dump from overseas as well.

Though the site will be used to store only low-level radioactive wastes, groups including the Texas office of Public Citizen and the Sierra Club warn of a serious contamination threat to the Ogallala Aquifer – the largest freshwater aquifer in the country – which lies dangerously close to the site. In the wake of the decision, these community advocacy groups have launched a campaign to challenge the decision via an array of legislative, legal and administrative pathways.

Amazing news. The U.S. Navy has reversed course on an important issue that will prevent tons of toxic pollution at sea.

For years, it was thought acceptable and even beneficial for the environment for the Navy to dump old ships at sea after they are no longer needed.

But in large part thanks to the Basel Action Network's (BAN) advocacy and investigative work, this is no longer the case. Now, the U.S. Navy has decided to dismantle and recycle four retired aircraft carriers—the USS FORRESTAL, the SARATOGA, INDEPENDENCE, and CONSTELLATION—rather than letting these valuable ships sink to a watery graveyard. More than, 300 Change.org members joined Basel Action Network in signing the global toxic trade watchdog's petition on our network.

BAN estimates that the recycling of the FORRESTAL alone will bring in millions of dollars with the the resale of 40,000 tons scrap steel, copper and aluminum, in addition to creating 500 jobs in the domestic recycling industry and about 1,900 jobs in the overall economy for one year. By contrast, with two aircraft carriers were scuttled at sea in recent years, their sinking cost taxpayers $20 million a pop. In the last decade alone, about 95 naval vessels have been scrapped at sea, so this news is also an important indication the Navy is reversing this trend.

I've been writing a lot to help with a campaign (11,000 signatures and counting) to make San Francisco the first city in the U.S. to end the distribution of unwanted copies of the Yellow Pages.

In the process, I've met a man named Albert Kaufman, of Portland, Oregon, who is the driving force behind similar proposed statewide legislation now being considered in Oregon. He's been asked a good question: "You might ask, why, when there is so much going wrong in the world, have I chosen to focus on phone books?"

His answer? "I learned a while ago that it makes sense to focus on a thread, and keep on pulling, and somewhere along the way, the wastefulness and just downright pain in the ass to deal with of phonebooks got to me."

It's an attitude similar to the motivation of many Change.org members—you've got to start somewhere. Why not the phone book?

San Francisco, as one of the greenest and most progressive cities in the country, has a track record of passing landmark environmental measures. Supervisor David Chiu's proposed ordinance is no exception: It would be the first program in the U.S. to end the distribution of unwanted Yellow Pages by creating an "opt-in" program.

Unfortunately, that distinction can also be a curse.

In the last few weeks, the $15 billion phone directory industry has put heavy resources into lobbying the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to vote down the measure, fearing the precedent its passage would set and the potential for other cities and states to follow.

That's why yesterday a vote on the legislation was delayed for 6 weeks. Lobbyists with groups such as the Yellow Pages Association swayed a few members of the Board to request an economic impact report from the city's comptroller, which Board of Supervisor President David Chiu agreed to complete. Chiu is also the sponsor of the Yellow Pages legislation and the sponsor of a petition on Change.org as a vehicle to express grassroots support for the bill. So far, more than 11,000 people have signed, and more than 1,000 of these signers are residents of San Francisco.

Chiu's office told me that while the delay is unfortunate, they are confidant the economic report will support his position. (So far, the city's Land Use committee and its Small Business Commission both have unanimously endorsed the bill).