- Thread starter shannecart
- Start date
Waste Waste Wate Waste Waste And Waste
No yours
I am done with this subject you clean it up in the most etiquette friendly way you like......I am off for another beer and a swim
Skippy1
I am done with this subject you clean it up in the most etiquette friendly way you like......I am off for another beer and a swim
Skippy1
If you guys want to know what a Dominican would do in this situation it is simple. A group of reputable sizeable business owners or a junta de vecinos would make a complaint to the ayuntamiento. If this falls on deaf ears, they would try to get an audience with a local politiician to get funds. Also, if it is a junta de vecinos, they might also appeal to a big business owner in the area to make a contribution to the clean up efforts.
The funds would be used to pay people to pick up the trash and bring it to an accessible location to be carried off. A more lasting solution would have the ayuntamiento establish a new trash pickup area and the funds could be used to create a block concrete enclosure. This will give the locals a place to put the trash but it doesn't end there. Eduction of the locals is the next step and the most important. This can be done with flyers and "town hall" meetings at the local public club and certainly free beverages and a meal will help. Finally, permanent signs need to be posted in the surrounding areas explaining that trash is not to be dumped and where the trash collection area is to be found.
The funds would be used to pay people to pick up the trash and bring it to an accessible location to be carried off. A more lasting solution would have the ayuntamiento establish a new trash pickup area and the funds could be used to create a block concrete enclosure. This will give the locals a place to put the trash but it doesn't end there. Eduction of the locals is the next step and the most important. This can be done with flyers and "town hall" meetings at the local public club and certainly free beverages and a meal will help. Finally, permanent signs need to be posted in the surrounding areas explaining that trash is not to be dumped and where the trash collection area is to be found.
For the American's amongst us .. sticking plaster is band aids. So, what Skippy1 is saying here, is that he wants to pay attention to the big solutions, not the small ones.
Sigh.
I ask for calm heads and come back to find a fight instead.:ermm:
This thread has potential, so far largely un- (or at least under-) realized. C'mon people, let's back off spats about tone, what we have for lunch, who's doing and who's not, etc. I have editing and delete buttons and I am not afraid to use them.
FYI, Skippy, two of the people you are fighting with, Chris and Chiri, are founding members of the Green Team. Chris has done alot of work on waste up in Punta Rucia, and Chiri works with an NGO on environment issues (waste among them, if memory serves) and has written on waste issues several times on the GT blog (see, for example, her piece on Salinas Beach on the GT blog). Chiri also wrote a good piece on greening the DR's schools. They can/should be your allies, if both sides take a deep breath and tone down the rhetoric.
Keith R
Environment Forum moderator
I ask for calm heads and come back to find a fight instead.:ermm:
This thread has potential, so far largely un- (or at least under-) realized. C'mon people, let's back off spats about tone, what we have for lunch, who's doing and who's not, etc. I have editing and delete buttons and I am not afraid to use them.
FYI, Skippy, two of the people you are fighting with, Chris and Chiri, are founding members of the Green Team. Chris has done alot of work on waste up in Punta Rucia, and Chiri works with an NGO on environment issues (waste among them, if memory serves) and has written on waste issues several times on the GT blog (see, for example, her piece on Salinas Beach on the GT blog). Chiri also wrote a good piece on greening the DR's schools. They can/should be your allies, if both sides take a deep breath and tone down the rhetoric.
Keith R
Environment Forum moderator
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Simple solution, but WRONG solution. Just because it's done elsewhere (and that means ANYwhere), doesn't mean burning polystyrene is safe and correct. To fully understand, I invite you all to read a Green Team post on this very subject posted back in April 2006 (pics, BTW, provided by none other than one of the two ladies Skippy is arguing with here).
And BTW, trash burning also technically is illegal under Dominican law. Probably doesn't stop many people from doing it... but maybe if more Dominicans understood the possible health/environment consequences, they'd cut it back or stop it themselves. :ermm:
And BTW, trash burning also technically is illegal under Dominican law. Probably doesn't stop many people from doing it... but maybe if more Dominicans understood the possible health/environment consequences, they'd cut it back or stop it themselves. :ermm:
The solution to trash needs to be on multiple levels. Yes, in the schools. Yes, in the laws. And, yes, there needs to be market based incentives as well. Ecological waste processing will come to the island someday. Hopefully sooner rather than later. There's a really interesting explanation of plasma technology at Howstuffworks "How Plasma Converters Work"
The only real draw back is the cost and getting the critical production balance right.
You need a lot of waste to make this work efficiently.
The storage of the waste while it waits for processing is difficult too.
Plasma does sound like the way to go but early days yet.
Nice post Thanks Kevadair.
Skippy1
You need a lot of waste to make this work efficiently.
The storage of the waste while it waits for processing is difficult too.
Plasma does sound like the way to go but early days yet.
Nice post Thanks Kevadair.
Skippy1
Uhhhhh wrong perhaps for you....that styro-stuff melts to a fraction of it's original size. As far as "Dominican Law" goes, burnin a barrel full of trash is nothing a couple hundred pesos to the "responding agency" won't take care of.
Gimmie a match, a wire coat hanger and some marshmellows....the street kids will love me!
I guess the potential health impacts of burning PS don't matter to you.
Just because it can be done, officers can be bribed to look the other way, and the residue is a fraction of the original size doesn't make it a wise option.
I been stating this facts listed above and then some. Hill people that move into the city, without changing their mind set. In undeveloped areas such as Africa is the third world, we are in a fifth world country. due to political corruption and development. We are in the eighteenth century, now the time is the twenty-first, even the basic education, is half- as intensive Seven subject are not provided, When my daughter entered kindergarten in the seventies there where computer in every desk in the whole school. Thirty years latter, we have NOT EVEN GOTTEN TO THE TWENTH CENTURY YET.
Keith, what do you think about plasma?
Keith, do you think Plasma will be an answer down the road, or do you consider it a form of "clean incineration" that you have previously spoke negatively about.
I'm no expert, but it seems once the trash is that hot, it solves many of the negative results that burning trash leaves behind.
But, I have also heard that one of the toughest parts is feeding your plasma machine a consistent mix and keeping it regularly loaded with waste 24/7.
Do you have more insight into this next-gen of machine?
Thanks,
Kevin A.
BTW, thanks, Skippy, for the complement on my previous post.
Keith, do you think Plasma will be an answer down the road, or do you consider it a form of "clean incineration" that you have previously spoke negatively about.
I'm no expert, but it seems once the trash is that hot, it solves many of the negative results that burning trash leaves behind.
But, I have also heard that one of the toughest parts is feeding your plasma machine a consistent mix and keeping it regularly loaded with waste 24/7.
Do you have more insight into this next-gen of machine?
Thanks,
Kevin A.
BTW, thanks, Skippy, for the complement on my previous post.
After my trip to PuertoPlata/Sosua two weeks ago I was also shocked by the waste strewn around the countryside. The predominant waste I observed on/in the beaches/streams etc. was plastic containers.
Obviously the economic realities of the DR are much different than here but I was thinking there must be a solution that will work.
What if the government mandated a deposit for any containers? Would that be enough incentive for the average Dominican to return the container? Obviously an infrastructure would be required to collect and recycle the containers. Could the collection point be the store where the item was purchased so the deposit could be refunded?
I assume the breweries etc. recycle their beer bottles as we do here in Canada. These are probably picked up by the delivery truck at the bars/resorts but how do the bottles make their way back from residences?
Obviously the economic realities of the DR are much different than here but I was thinking there must be a solution that will work.
What if the government mandated a deposit for any containers? Would that be enough incentive for the average Dominican to return the container? Obviously an infrastructure would be required to collect and recycle the containers. Could the collection point be the store where the item was purchased so the deposit could be refunded?
I assume the breweries etc. recycle their beer bottles as we do here in Canada. These are probably picked up by the delivery truck at the bars/resorts but how do the bottles make their way back from residences?
well
little guy with a big sack goes through your trash and picks them up and takes them in, or if your nice you line them up outside for him. major containers are foam no way to get a deposit for takeout, and cant be reused any way.
they need to throw crap away in the proper place, not where they are standing or walking or driving
little guy with a big sack goes through your trash and picks them up and takes them in, or if your nice you line them up outside for him. major containers are foam no way to get a deposit for takeout, and cant be reused any way.
they need to throw crap away in the proper place, not where they are standing or walking or driving
sburns, the DR had an informal deposit system for decades for glass bottles that worked quite well. When you returned a glass soda bottle to the local colmado, they gave you a couple of pesos off your next soda. The local bottlers would then collect the unbroken bottles (shards not welcome) from the colmados.
But that system has been breaking down over the last 10 years or so. Soda bottlers in the DR are switching to PET -- lighter (therefore better for the fuel consumption of their delivery trucks), and no breakage (something both colmado owners and bottlers like). Also, more and more sodas are being sold in supermarkets (Pola, etc) and hypermarkets, and these larger stores don't want to mess with bottle returns.
As a result, fewer glass bottles, more plastic, and more plastic waste. The DR has no in-country PET recycler that I know of (would be happy to find out differently!), so even if collected it would have to be ground up and exported.
I'm told (hope this is true) that Cerveceria Nacional (brewer of Presidente) still pays for unbroken empty beer bottles bearing their brands, cleans them and reuses them -- which is why the botelleros do what they do. But also have heard that they are test marketing with PET and metal beer bottles in the DR, so maybe that too is about to about to go down the drain...
There are very few deposit/return systems in place in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) -- primarily Barbados and Grenada. Dominica, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago have all studied doing it, but didn't go through with it. Why? Strong opposition from the major soda companies and their local bottlers, say the local officials off-the-record. There's even recent pressure (from guess who!) to get Barbados to drop their system...
But that system has been breaking down over the last 10 years or so. Soda bottlers in the DR are switching to PET -- lighter (therefore better for the fuel consumption of their delivery trucks), and no breakage (something both colmado owners and bottlers like). Also, more and more sodas are being sold in supermarkets (Pola, etc) and hypermarkets, and these larger stores don't want to mess with bottle returns.
As a result, fewer glass bottles, more plastic, and more plastic waste. The DR has no in-country PET recycler that I know of (would be happy to find out differently!), so even if collected it would have to be ground up and exported.
I'm told (hope this is true) that Cerveceria Nacional (brewer of Presidente) still pays for unbroken empty beer bottles bearing their brands, cleans them and reuses them -- which is why the botelleros do what they do. But also have heard that they are test marketing with PET and metal beer bottles in the DR, so maybe that too is about to about to go down the drain...
There are very few deposit/return systems in place in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) -- primarily Barbados and Grenada. Dominica, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago have all studied doing it, but didn't go through with it. Why? Strong opposition from the major soda companies and their local bottlers, say the local officials off-the-record. There's even recent pressure (from guess who!) to get Barbados to drop their system...
It's a shame and it's taken over in the US too. The thing is a full 20oz PET bottle weighs the same as a 12oz glass bottle. If they tried to put 20oz into a glass bottle, it would be too heavy to use as single serve container(which would prob be a good thing).
I remember on a trip to when I was a kid to the DR, every soda machine had a big stack of glass bottles next to it in wooden crates and the full ones had a ring of glass that had been etched from other bottles bumping them over the years. There were no labels at all and the bottles were all the same. If you wanted an orange soda, you got the bottle with the orange soda inside and an orange bottle cap-- not exactly rocket science.
It could all be stopped by putting a tax/deposit on PET/glass bottles. The deposit laws in the US have done wonders to clean up roadsides and sidewalks. There are still states that do not have deposit laws and the litter is everywhere. It is also often the ONLY income for many homeless people. 100 bottles = food for the day or some drugs. Unfortunately there is no deposit on bottled water, and since the plastic doesn't disappear, the bottles are starting to become a litter issue in many areas.
Soda used to be served in 5oz bottles many a year ago...
I see 2 liter store-brand soda for sale all time in the US for under a dollar and you can buy it with food stamps in most states. Two liters of soda has the equivalent of about one cup of sugar. And people wonder why Americans are so fat...
The sad thing is, 40 years ago there was no plastic on the island. All the trash would just rot away in a few weeks or get eaten by rats/pigs/goats/chickens. No fast food paper bags/drink cups either.