The Mother Nature Network just announced the Top Ten Greenest cities—Do you think any Pennsylvania cities were on the list?
Not this time around, but they could be if people in Pennsylvania are willing to make green living a priority, support green legislation and ask our legislators about their green voting record.
The majority, seven out of the ten, are cities in Western states. So, if Pennsylvania were to pick up the pace, perhaps we could be one of the leading states on the East Coast.
Although the EPA has not established official criteria for ranking the greenness of a city, there are several key areas to measure for effectiveness in carbon footprint reduction.
Areas include:
- Air and water quality
- Efficient recycling and management of waste
- Percentage of LEED-certified buildings
- Acres of land devoted to green space
- Use of renewable energy sources
- Making it easier to access products and services to accommodate a green lifestyle (organic products, buying local, clean transportation methods)
Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco just passed the first mandatory composting law in the U.S. What does this mean and why is this important?
New statistics show that people in San Francisco already keep an impressive 72 percent of their waste out of landfills.
The mayor's office had completed an analysis of the city's waste-stream and discovered that "about two-thirds of the garbage people throw away, approximately 500,000 tons annually, could have been recycled or turned to compost. San Francisco already converts over 400 tons of food scraps and other compostable discards into high-grade organic compost every day."
The ordinance does not require deposits or bonds, which makes it small business-friendly and also limits the amount of bureaucracy needed to implement the program. The main challenge is compliance.
Newsom said, “When it comes to our recycling programs, we’re always in the development phase. In order to meet our ambitious goal of 75 percent recycling by 2010 and zero waste by 2020, we are constantly looking for additional materials to recycle, and for emerging markets to make use of our recyclables.”
Zero waste by 2020, emerging markets for recyclables--these are the types of goals and ideas we need to be pushing in Pennsylvania.
DISCUSSION TOPICS:
What are your thoughts? What should our legislators be doing to make Pennsylvania greener?
Would people in Pennsylvania go for mandatory composting? A solar energy program? Or, with Pittsburgh’s aging sewage system—how about composting toilets….
