Lakewood Progressive?

[Shawn Juris]

Just saw a story about the Philadelphia Eagles going green (all clean energy with a focus on recycling), there's also a big push in Detroit for the same thing. Now, these are two cities that are supposed to be in the dark ages but clearly they are making progress. While Cleveland has an image that is probably pretty bad nationwide, Lakewood is supposed to be progressive, right? Does anyone know of what the city is doing to "go green"? It struck me a while back when at the Main Street's streetscape meeting someone asked if recycling bins would be integrated into the plan, and the look on everyone's face was just confusion as if it was never considered. Other comments give me the impression that there is a sense of complacency among those that should be leading the charge.

[Shawn Juris]

I stand corrected, Cleveland was leading the way on solar as the Indians were the first team to integrate this technology.
http://www.greenenergyohio.org/page.cfm?pageID=1351

[Ivor Karabatkovic]

during the middle of this past season the indians installed enough solar panels to generate enough power for the 400+ TV's in Jacobs field.

[Mary Breiner]

I think people who do not recycle in Lakewood should be fined. I don't know how it can be done, but it is a simple thing to separate paper and bottles and cans from your trash. I am not sure what the numbers are, but I recall a city council meeting where someone (maybe Michael Dever) spoke about all the money Lakewood saves from recycling (by keeping it out of the dump) and also the money we earn by selling the paper to a recycling place. It just seems like a no brainer and there should be a way to encourage (or force) everyone to do so. What do you all think?


Mary

[Bryan Schwegler]

Charge residents by the pound for garbage...that will get them to recycle

But I'm with you Mary, I don't understand how anyone could not do it, Lakewood makes it soooo easy. You barely have to sort anything.

[Danielle Masters]

When we lived in the Bay area they had an interesting incentive program.

http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/news/2003/ ... nized.html

I don't know what the actual cost would be to the city but maybe it's something worth looking into. We recycle everything possible, but I know several people that don't. Honestly I want to just smack them upside the head because there is just no excuse for not recycling, except of course laziness. On the subject of recycling and mass consumption. I like this guys photography: http://www.chrisjordan.com/. It really makes you think.

[Bobbie Hendrick]

Hi Mary,
In Tokyo people have to sort their garbage and recyclables, and they get fined if they don't do it correctly. The Starbucks have about 8 compartments for refuse.

Shawn,
I think I remember when Dennis Dunn was on Council he got something passed requiring all city construction to be "green." Also, MTG has a Green Committee, but I don't know anything about it.

I have a little (very little) knowledge about LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design - www.usgbc.org) certification. I wonder if the new schools are seeking this. And if not, I wonder if it is too late to be incorporated in the current and next phase. There are initial higher expenditures, but they pay for themselves over time.

Does anyone know more about this?

[Justine Cooper]

Does anyone know how much the city makes with recycling? I can't imagine throwing out a plastic milk jug ever but my friends in Strongsville and Avon do!! They don't even have recycling there!!!!! By the way, we have been bagging up our laundry plastic bottles too but just read they don't want those. Is that true?

[Shawn Juris]

Just so I'm clear on this so is Lakewood considered "progressive" on this topic? Would it be fair to say that in order to retain such a description, we should keep progressing with either some of these types of ideas or others? It's great that curbside pickupp is available but honestly that isn't progressive. It's been done for at least 15 years now. It's great that a resolution was passed 4 years ago, but were these standards upheld in the building projects? I don't want to imply that they haven't I'm really not sure about it.
Maybe I expect to much but from what I understand recycling programs in the schools has not been all too successful, public recycling is non existent and while committees have been formed- what are they working on?

[Danielle Masters]

I agree with you Shawn, Lakewood is certainly not progressive in our recycling program. Yes we have trash cans on the streets, but there is no place to recycle an aluminum can or a plastic bottle or even an empty cracker box if you are at the park. I take my recyclables with me, but I am not so naive to believe that many other people so that. Does the city recycle all paper? I know that at Grant the kids from the environmental club gather the paper weekly for recycling, but I don't believe they have separate containers for any other types of recycling. I don;t even know how many schools have these programs. I do know that the trash that was thrown out during our classroom parties was sad, especially since quite a bit of it could have been recycled. As for the new schools, I could be wrong, but my understanding is that they were not built to green standards. Yes they are more energy efficient because they are using newer technology but they are using far more than they used to, so the net effect is that they are using far more energy. From what I remember that the builder said it was just too costly to be green. If someone in the know knows more please tell us. So we need to be a little more vigilant, but it will take action from our leaders. It would be nice if we could count on everyone to do their part, but I don't see that happening. Where do the candidates stand on this issue? Do they have any ideas on what we could do as a city to be a bit greener? I think the attempts at making the city more bike friendly is a fabulous start, but we are a creative thinking outside the box bunch we can do better.

[Bill Grulich]

We know that residents from Rocky River, Fairview, Cleveland, Westlake, Bay Village, and Lakewood use the Dog Park. I really think we should ask those people to bring their old newspapers and recycle them outside the Dog Park.

Paper Retriever (No pun intended.) offers a program that pays cash for newspapers. http://www.paperretriever.com/default.asp?ID=134

Bill Grulich

[dl meckes]

From the City web site:

As a participant in the Cuyahoga County Paper Marketing Cooperative, the City of Lakewood earns $40.00/ton for paper recycle. With only 35% participation from our residents, the City of Lakewood was paid $82,106 in 2004, and $85,210 in 2005, for recyclable paper products, and the 4,275 tons of paper collected and recycled saved the City $128,210 in landfill fees.

I don't have access to better numbers at this particular time, but I do know that over the past few years the City's recycling programs have expanded.

Council did, in the last budget, decide that the line items for the City's recycling education program in the schools and City publicity regarding recycling should be cut or cut back.

[Shawn Juris]

Where's Bill to crunch these numbers? If the city is making money on this wouldn't it be logical that more would be done to encourage it? To be honest the reimbursement breaks down to just .02/lb for paper but I know that I don't get paid for throwing things away otherwise.
From what it seems this is just the residential numbers. I wonder about the businesses, schools and municipal facilities. I also wonder about the reimbursement for cans, bottles, plastics. From what I understand the money is in paper so the others may not get a financial incentive. Well, other than not having to pay for landfill fees. Speaking of which I wonder how much the city spends in total for landfill fees.
If the city or maybe a manufacturer is interested, I have a retrofit design for the existing trashcans that could be worthwhile.

[Danielle Masters]

I was speaking with a friend this morning regarding the schools environmental impact. She has called to tell me about the trash they are generating. Her shock was that they use styrofoam trays for the lunches that then get thrown away. Lets say half the kids eat school lunch in the elementary schools that's about 175 trays a day per elementary school or 220,500 trays or the entire school year and that's just the elementary schools. I don't even know the numbers for the upper grade levels. And as I said in an earlier post, there are no recycling bins for other items. I know that some people say not enough revenue is generated through plastic, aluminum and glass recycling but is that really what we should be worrying about? I agree with Shawn we need to be a bit more progressive in our efforts. I'm not so concerned about the cost of landfill space, but it does frustrate me that if we all did our part we would need so much landfill space. I just remember being a kid growing up in California and taking the same field trip every year to SDSU to learn about conservation efforts. That was the 80's and it doesn't seem like we've came very far. So maybe the Observer could start off the year with articles about what we could do as individuals to make this city more "progressive"? It doesn't take a lot just simple changes. It could help with that Lakewood brand. Okay I'll get off my soapbox.

[Brad Hutchison]

I have relatives that lived in the Chicago area (Aurora) and they had to buy stickers to put on all the waste bags that were NOT recyclables. That encouraged everyone to recycle as much as possible, because you had to pay for trash.