Solid Waste

Albany Should Implement the Chain Resturant Styrofoam Ban

Remarks I gave to County Executive Dan McCoy on the Chain Restaurant Styrofoam ban at the recent public hearing at the County Office Building….

I encourage County Executive Dan McCoy to promptly approve Local Law “A” which would require large chain restaurants to phase out the use of Styrofoam dishes and plastic forks. I understand previous speakers have raised technical questions about the wording of the language, however I urge you to sign the law at this time. You have 180 days until the law goes into effect, which provides ample time for you to make a Chaptered Amendment and correct any technical issues. Let’s the legislature debate future changes, once we get this good policy as law.styro-in-pond1

 

This currently the law in Suffolk County, population 1.5 million. When I was Mattituck, Long Island, I went to a Dunkin Donuts and got some coffee. The coffee was good, not in a Styrofoam container. There are many chain restaurants in Suffolk County, and none have gone out of business due to the Styrofoam ban. Thanks to competition and competitive markets, none have raised their prices either. Multinational companies simply ate the cost, rather then raising prices. McDonald’s isn’t going to let Burger King beat it in the price game, just over a 2 cent packaging change.

In contrast, Albany County, a small upstate county, population 300,000, should be an easy adjustment to these big chain restaurant establishments. We are just asking chain restaurants to follow the law of Massachusetts, Suffolk County, and many West Coast cities.

Burning the Morning's Garbage Up

Let’s be honest, a ton of Styrofoam cups and containers are tossed out windows from cars. Many folks litter, and a only small portion of that litter gets picked up by volunteers. Sometimes people litter by accident – we all have had the experience when a Styrofoam cup or plastic bag has blown out the open window of our cars. If people are going to litter, let’s make it something that will rot in the woods, or get torn up by a farm tractor and plowed back into the ground, and be mostly harmless.

As a preschooler can tell you, Styrofoam doesn’t biodegrade, but it does it get broken up into small pieces, which are problematic for the environment. It’s bad news, especially it’s mass use in urban environments. We’ve all seen it in our favorite fishing holes, back in woods, and in our parks. Let’s keep our cows from eating it in their feed rations and dying from hardware failure. Let’s ban the most noxious use of this product – as handed out a drive-thus and similar establishments.

Sand Dune, Fence, Landfill

To be clear, nothing in this law regulates small business. Nothing in this law prohibits the private ownership of Styrofoam, there is no confiscation program included in this law. You still have the right to go to Walmart and buy Styrofoam plates if you so choose. This only addresses large chain restaurants, and is a good proposal. If there are technical issues with the drafting of this legislation, you have 180 days until it goes into effect to do a Chaptered Amendment.

As such, please approve this law as soon as possible. – Thank you.

Testimony on the Albany County Local Law “A”.

Why Don’t They Dispose of Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s Carcass As Garbage?

This may sound like a silly question, but why don’t they just dispose of the Boston Bomber Tamerlan  Tsarnav’s carcass as a solid waste, e.g. toss it into a dumpster behind police headquarters, and have it hauled off to a landfill or trash incineration plant? Why does the United States or Massachusetts taxpayers have to pay for a special burial of the body what almost anybody would agree was the terrorist who attacked the Boston Marathon? The person is dead, from his shoot out with police, after committing the horrific Boston bombings.

Tamerlan-Tsarnaev-B-W-phto1

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There is nothing sacred about the man or who he was. He morally disgusts us in many ways. We as a society believe it’s fine to dispose of other organic material such as dead animals, food waste, and street sweepings in a landfill, so why not a known terrorist? His body would be buried in a mountain of municipal trash, and it would hardly be a drop in the bucket for any landfill. If it’s okay to pile vast amounts of organic material mixed with technical products in heaps on the outskirts of town, then what’s wrong with adding a known terrorist’s carcass to it — like we do for so many other animal carcasses?

Sand Dune, Fence, Landfill

While I’m certainly not advocating for more landfilling over recycling very good materials, I think we have a very double standard for the disposal of what anybody would agree is human refuse, compared to what we have for waste products of normal human existence — which if anything should be recycled and recovered. This terrorist is true garbage, and should be treated as such, compared to common “solid waste”, which I believe should be either recycled for its technical materials, or its organics recovered for soil amendment.

2020 NY Population by (MTA) Region

If Tamerlan Tsarnaev isn’t garbage, then what is?