Comments for Britain’s Zero Waste Policy at http://www.jbs.org , comment 1 to 5 out of 5 comments http://www.jbs.org Sun, 14 Mar 2010 10:21:26 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.jbs.org/environmental-stewardship-blog/5490-britains-zero-waste-policy#comment-2510 That is the type of recycling we need to have!! - bg Wed, 14 Oct 2009 03:27:06 +0100 http://www.jbs.org/environmental-stewardship-blog/5490-britains-zero-waste-policy#comment-2508 Quit fiddling around with empty milk cartons while the frozen moonscape of ANWR sits unexplored! America- that includes little ol Nova Scotia needs energy not a government mandated trash collection program. The Canadian national government and the governments in the provinces are being run by nuts and idiots. http://www.gov.ns.ca/ Forget recyling and get the government nuts and idiots out of office or you are going to freeze in the dark. - Lee Gonzales Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:06:38 +0100 http://www.jbs.org/environmental-stewardship-blog/5490-britains-zero-waste-policy#comment-2504 I've lived in Prince Edward Island in eastern Canada, since just before 9/11. The smallest Canadian province adopted a mandatory, comprehensive recycling and composting program quite a few years ago, as did its neighbouring province, Nova Scotia. When each province adopted these programs, most of the resistance came from retirees, which makes good sense, as a good deal of them are infirm or at least compromised, and having to lug heavy, awkward, containers to the curbside each week at first appeared to be rather a formidable task. But here we are, quite a few years in and the biggest problems are odour issues. The complaints about inconvenience have more or less died out. One strange development has been a stubborn resistance of the Island's farmers to purchasing composted fertilizer which is made from what gets tossed in the green containers each week. They say the cost is too high. So something has gone wrong as this was one of the incentives for putting the program in place. Otherwise, this small province, with a population of just over 140,000 -- yes, you read it correctly the first time -- needs to get a pat on its back from the rest of the world. If little P.E.I., Anne's Land, can do it, surely everyone else can! My hat's off to the Brits for endeavoring to put such a program in place. Perhaps policy makers need to take a little glance at how it can be successfully implemented, by visiting the little Island just above Nova Scotia, cradled in the waves! - Ellen Christine Smith Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:39:52 +0100 http://www.jbs.org/environmental-stewardship-blog/5490-britains-zero-waste-policy#comment-2503 I remember the brown paper bag that mom packed our school lunche in and told us not to throw the bag away. The record holder in our home was my older sister who kept hers still useable for two weeks! No government needed to tell sis to recycle. Mom did the ordering! Yes milk seemed to taste better in glass containers but the milk packers decided that cardboard containers were more economical. Under a strong economy there would be room for companies to sell their products in glass, cardborad and plastic. The decision to recycle would be left up to consumers and government would stay out of mom's way. The recycling mania is shifting into high gear in "green" states like Oregon and California. But you have to wonder how many hours out of each month people spend separating glass, aluminum, and cardboard? How much time is spent driving to unsightly and trash-strewn dump recycle centers? The recyling mania is creating environmental fanaticism; the constant hammering into the American psyche that we are running out of energy. The people who visit this site often know that that is not the case. Geologists have proven that our country is chock-full of oil, coal, and natural gas. Add to this the virtually endless source of electrical energy from nuclear power. Yet Americans are being turned into a pack rat collection society. Let's free up America's incredible energy abundance and quit fiddling around with empty milk cartons while the frozen moonscape of ANWR sits unexplored! - Lee Gonzales Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:06:46 +0100 http://www.jbs.org/environmental-stewardship-blog/5490-britains-zero-waste-policy#comment-2499 Food scraps? Didn't their mothers teach them to eat everything on their plates? They never heard "never take more than you can eat"? And what about all those poor, starving children in Africa? I have nothing against recycling, but doesn't REUSE make more sense? Why sell milk in a disposable single use container when we could be using reusable glass? Same thing for sodas, etc. When I was a kid, we reused egg cartons. When an appliance broke, we repaired it. When my parents were first married, they bought a used refrigerator. When they died 48 years later, the same refrigerator was still in use on the back porch. When we bought feed for our animals, it came in cloth sacks, not paper. The empty cloth sacks then became clothes. When the clothes wore out, the material was used again as rags and towels for cleanup. Now we use stuff for a short time and send it to the landfill. - RP Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:23:40 +0100