Our Town: Reduce, reuse, rethink

Sometimes she waits until Sunday. Usually, though, she makes it happen on Saturday morning. One way or another, each weekend, my wife, Leslie, strongly reminds me that it is time to take out the recycling items and divide them among the proper containers.

There's always a plenitude of plastic bottles of Caffeine Free Diet Coke, as well as a few cans. There's last Sunday's massive Examiner newspaper. And, of course, there are the odds and ends: a depleted shampoo bottle, a Sports Illustrated and expired pizza coupons.

These items pile up all week in a blue plastic container by the kitchen sink, often to the point of overflow, until Leslie jump-starts the cleanup process. One of my tasks is to handle the recycling. It's a good job, and I wouldn't exchange it for one of Leslie's more difficult duties.

"Earth first," I think to myself while carefully shooting three-pointers with crushed cans into the proper recycling basket. Placing the now empty blue plastic container back by the sink, I take a moment to congratulate myself for a job well done and for being so environmentally conscious.

However, during a recent conversation with Julie Weiss, residential recycling coordinator for the City of Palo Alto's Recycling Program, I realized that my efforts aren't enough. I need to be doing more to combat waste.

There's a saying: "reduce, reuse, recycle." Recycling, for all of its considerable merits, is the least effective step of that trio as far as reducing waste. Recycling still produces waste, and it uses energy. But it's recycling that gets all the attention, Weiss said, while the terms "reduce" and "reuse" are often ignored.

This Saturday's fourth annual Palo Alto City-wide Garage Sale is all about promoting reuse and reduction of materials (for the locations of more than 170 sale sites see the advertisement in this edition of The Weekly). When people buy secondhand, they not only extend the usefulness of items, but they save the materials and energy necessary to make new products--not to mention the packaging, be it form-fitting Styrofoam or tight plastic wrap.

Still, I understand the thrill of hitting the mall and buying that brand-new-something-that-you've-always-wanted-for-the-last-10-minutes. Shoes and CDs have always been particular weaknesses for me. Weiss knows that it's an uphill battle to get people hooked on reuse and reduction. The United States is a consumer society, she says, and we are always bombarded with messages to "buy, buy, buy."

"We are really trained to be massive consumers," Weiss said. "Acquisition of stuff is a big part of our culture."

Back in 1989, the California Integrated Waste Management Act was passed requiring all cities in the state to reduce the amount of waste produced--in 1989 terms--by 50 percent by the year 2000. Palo Alto seems to be on the right track. Through such programs as recycling and yard waste collection, the currently approved figure for waste diversion is 39 percent. And, Weiss said, when the new diversion figure is released it should clock in at almost 49 percent.

"We think that's a more accurate number, but we are just waiting for the state to approve that figure," she said.

To put these numbers into perspective, last year 176,033 tons of waste were generated in Palo Alto. Of that, 85,955 tons were diverted.

A little reduction and reuse could sure help the city go that extra couple of miles and reach the goal by the year 2000. That means you and me. For me that means such things as looking through the used CD section for my next purchase instead of going through the new ones wrapped tightly in plastic, telling the server at Pollo Rey that I don't need my burrito wrapped in aluminum foil, and drinking draft beer instead of bottled. For you, it could be as simple as using a ceramic mug for coffee instead of having the java poured into a disposable cup. Or it could mean buying your next novel or jacket at Saturday's city-wide garage sale.

But it doesn't mean forgetting about recycling. My weekly ritual will not change. I just need to figure out a way to have my wife remind me to do even more.

Jim Harrington is the Weekly's arts and entertainment writer.

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