Times Editorial Save world, save us
How getting into bed with private business lacks sense
Posted: August 16, 2009 at 5:21 a.m.
No fewer than four members of the Northwest Arkansas Times staff were among the 30 to 40 people gathered at the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce Tuesday afternoon for an event that had been billed as the announcement of a major sustainability initiative of Fayetteville schools, the city of Fayetteville and the chamber. Always interested in learning more about our local steps to care for the environment, we were eager to hear the announcement.
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Opinion, Pages 4 on 08/16/2009
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I think there is plenty of criticism here but not many facts, at least not facts that I heard presented at the press conference.
Fact 1: As I understand it, this habitotes initiative costs the Chamber, the City, FPS and the Visitors Center absolutely $00.00. Private business is funding it and allowing the various public entities to be involved and will actually allow each of them to earn some much needed $$ for each of their publicly funded entities.
Fact 2: I don't care if these habitotes are manufactured on the moon, sounds like if they are actually used at the grocery store, they can keep as many as 740,000+ plastic bags from entering our local waste stream. THAT IS A GREAT THING!
Fact 3: I am admittedly not a born/raised Fayetteville resident but I have been here for 7 years now. So maybe that's why it doesn't matter to me if the habitotes are created from global waste stockpiles. Because while I love living in Fayetteville, I understand that waste is a global problem Today, American's "create" a disgusting amount of recyclable waste, much of which we ship to China only to have them create more plastic bags which US business then pays to have shipped back over and placed in your hands. Again, if these totes are and do what they say, the program would put 240,000+ plastic bottles to some relevant use.
So if it doesn't cost the taxpayers a single red cent, AND it removes 740,000+ from our LOCAL waste stream AND removes 240,000 plastic bottles from the GLOBAL waste stockpiles... I fail to understand the Times position on this at all.
Oh, did I mention that when I arrived at my office this morning that there were 3 editions of the Times (Saturday, Sunday and Monday) in front of my nextdoor retailer. All of which I believe are funded (via paid advertising) by private business. Try taking the Sunday paper to the grocery store and wrapping your consumables in that. At least this tote things gives people an OPTION on reusing, something the Times doesn't do at all.
Posted by: Sparky_Anderson
August 17, 2009 at 6:36 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
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