A connection to my family's history
 
Thank you for the information presented in regard to Barren Island. My father, Alfred R. Salvati, was born there and my grandparents owned a boarding house on the island. I have several pictures from the late 1800's of Barren Island but never knew much about it since all my relatives died quite some time ago.

Reducing School Lunch Waste
 
Hi Elizabeth,

Thanks for all the great work you're doing to inform us about the impact of our purchasing decisions. I think it's essential to begin educating children when they are young and to continue to show them where their trash goes. In fact, I think every school should require a field trip to a landfill and recycling center.

I'd love to see an article on the waste-free lunch movement. If you're interested in the topic, please visit www.wastefreelunches.org.

Thanks again for all you do!

pictures of the Dead Horse beach
 
Elizabeth,

Recently I took some pictures at the "Dead Horse Beach" in Brooklyn. The site made quite an impression on me and I was researching the history of the beach when I found your page. Thanks for the story. It really now makes sense to me.

Here is a link to my pictures of the beach:

http://public.fotki.com/reason/photoshoots/beach_polution/

Feel free to use them in any way you feel like to promote the awareness of people to the pollution of our beaches.

I also took the liberty of pasting a paragraph from your article into my album. Hope you don't mind...

Regards,

Dmitry Avramenko

where does it all go
 
Elizabeth, I live near Farmersville, NY in Western NY which is about to get a permit for the largest landfill east of the Mississippi. It is scheduled to have 300-800 garbage trucks arrive each day from NYC and Toronto. We live near the Amish. Our roads are two-lane roads and there will be traffic acccidents between these garbage trucks and the Amish buggies. What an irony - those who refuese to recycle are killing those who don't produce any garbage, with the garbage.

Also, we have garbage coming over the Peace Bridge from Toronto. Terrorists in Canada can place a WMD into a garbage truck and it will never be inspected at the border. We are against travel of garbage over the border - nobody thought that airplanes would fly into buildings - nobody thinks that garbage trucks can be filled with contraband. Ecstacy (drug) is imported from Holland via Canada in gas tanks - why not garbage trucks, which are uninspectable? The underworld is in charge of gargabe anyway.

Last, do you know anything about how mercury is digested by soil bacteria and changed into methyl mercury gas which bubbles out of the landfill? As you know, methyl mercury causes 60,0000 birth defect annually.

I am trying to research the methyl mercury issue in landfills and also the homeland security isue of garbage traveling over the Canadian border in preparation for the new landfill, which for many reasons may not happen. We also are working with an anthropologist who is defending the Amish.

Elizabeth, please contact me if possible. Thank you for your work- recyclingly yours.

thank you
 
Thank you for taking the time out to write an article about my mom, Eva Barrientos. Over the past few months the family has really been down, and when we hear about all the good stuff she did and all the people she's helped it truly brings a smile to everyone's face to know she's not going to be forgotten. Thank you for showing you cared.

Mayonna White, age 15
Daughter of Eva Barrientos

Nickel
 
Elizabeth:

It's great that New York is expanding the nickel deposit. It's always baffled me that it doesn't apply to sports drinks, etc. What was the reasoning behind that?

Re: Nickel
 
New York hasn't expanded the bottle bill yet - the legislation is still winding through the state Assembly. As of last month, fourteen new bottle bill proposals have been introduced in ten states, and twenty-two different proposals for bottle bill expansion have been introduced in six states with existing deposit laws. (You can keep track of these efforts through the Bottle Bill Resource Guide). The reason sports drinks aren't included in existing bottle bills? Most of them weren't even a twinkle in the eye of their inventors when those bills were enacted, twenty to thirty years ago.

Following Your Rubbish
 
Elizabeth:

The idea of following your rubbish is very interesting and I have a couple of questions about it.

1. What surprises did you find in this project? Did you have more or less rubbish than expected? I'm always surpised by how much paper I generate.
2. How has the project affected the way you consume? Do you now buy things with an eye to what will be thrown away once you've used it?

Thanks. Looking forward to reading your book.

Re: Following Your Rubbish
 
I was mostly surprised by the weight of organics (food waste) in my garbage and excited by the prospect of composting most of that (minus the meat and dairy). I've become a more careful consumer: I try to buy things in larger sizes; reject individually wrapped servings and other products with excessive packaging (and let the manufacturer know why I spurned the product); and consider the type of garbage something will, eventually, become. Can a new toaster oven (cheaper to buy new than to fix the old, alas) be broken down into recyclable components, or will it sit in the landfill till hell freezes over?

Mongo
 
I love the word mongo that the sanitation workers use. Do you know where it comes from?

Are there any examples of interesting mongo?

Re: Mongo
 
According to Robin Nagle, an anthropologist who teaches a course called "Garbage in Gotham" at New York University, the origin of the word is mysterious, though it's been used by New York sanitation workers for many decades. Boston san men also use the word, and sometimes spell it "mungo." Interesting mongo? Tools, toys, books, consumer electronics, designer clothing, furniture, and more microwave platters than you can imagine.

My opinion
 
I'm an Oregonian, with a state law that we started long ago: we pay 5 cents extra, and indeed, if the container has 'made in Oregon' there is a nickel to claim when returned. Indeed this is primary income for the less fortunate - especially given the 2004 economy and much job loss for families and individuals. Will someone spell out WHO might be stating WE ARE FOR RECYCLING, and feeding money to defeat/nullify such laws? WE NEED TO KNOW -- for I believe we in America could do a lot more by BOYCOTTING guilty businesses.

Re: My opinion
 
For nearly thirty years, the Coca Cola and Pepsi-Cola Company, among other beverage companies, have spent tens of millions of dollars opposing new bottle bills and the extension of existing bottle bills. In Oregon, the beverage industry spent $3 million in 1996 to defeat expansion of the bottle bill. As you know, that effort failed.

Over the years, Keep America Beautiful, an anti-litter group funded by the American Plastics Council and other trade groups, has tried to discredit recycling with television ads, reports, and brochures that emphasize the costs and limits of recycling. The American Plastics Council also runs national ad campaigns and websites touting plastic's recyclability. Unfortunately, plastics manufacturers in most of the country are under no legal obligation to use recycled plastic, which costs more than virgin resin. And so most don't. (According to Environmental Defense, throughout the 1990s, "over 13 times more virgin plastic packaging was produced than was recycled.") Under shareholder pressure, both Pepsi and Coke pledged in 2002 to use ten percent recycled content in their PET plastic bottles but made no plans to achieve a higher rate.

Escape from Affluenza
 
And don't forget the sequel, Escape From Affluenza. I especially like the quiz and the 100 Ways to Escape Affluenza, especially the Waste & Clutter section.

Affluenza
 
Have you ever seen this site? I think you would find it interesting: http://www.pbs.org/kcts/affluenza. It's a show about the social and environmental costs of materialism and overconsumption.