The Informed Drinker: In the Beginning, There Was Rum
Why We Don't Like You: Texas A&M Aggies
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Weekend Music Preview: Woven Bones Tour Kick-Off [Beerland / Friday]
Thief Nabs $10K Flagship Trek Bike From Mellow Johnny's
Government Recalls Cars and Cribs [News Bits]
Excuse us while we step into the blogger battlefield compost bin. This isn't an attack; it’s just our new media way of recycling – turning lies into truth, melding age-old stereotypes into something a little more flattering. Al Gore is coming to town in October, people. It’s time to set things straight.
Daisy Whitney runs a blog called “Trial and Error” over at TelevisionWeek where she keeps tabs on the ever-changing medium that is the “telly” and the various ways it attempts to merge with the online world. She does her job well, always posting the latest developments on Lonelygirl15’s unfortunate demise, networks streaming full-episode HD content, and the like. However, the “error” part of the blog’s title was in full force when Daisy discussed Current TV’s online video contest called “Ecospot.” The product of a partnership with the Alliance for Climate Protection, the contest asks users to send in short content that would drive people to solve “the climate crisis.” Daisy opened the post with the following:
“Last week, I visited my parents in Austin, Texas.Yes, it was Texas and all that the name of the state implies, but it’s Austin, which is not like the rest of Texas. So I was shocked to learn that their town recycles only glass bottles. Not cardboard, not aluminum, not envelopes or white paper, not the plastic containers blueberries or strawberries come in and certainly not plastic bags, as we do here in San Francisco.
OK, so I live in California and it’s a little bit of La La Land. But still, the lack of recycling there and in other notable places, like Las Vegas and to some degree New York City, reminds me of how far we have to go.”
Perhaps Daisy’s parents layer the top of their recycling bin with glass bottles and our fellow blogger didn’t dig any deeper to test her initial theory, but we've been throwing in literally all of the items she claims are bin-banished since we could mouth the words "global" and "warming." We've told you this before, but it bears repeating: if you happen to live in a section of Austin without local pick-up, the city provides you with a variety of options. Check out Ecology Action of Texas and the Diversion Recycling Center for drop off sites all over town. As for the "certainly not plastic bags" conundrum, try looking around the entrance of the nearest H.E.B. It's that easy.
Photo from Pubrecycling
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Texas has some of the worst recycling efforts of anywhere in the nation. You can be upset with Daisy, but she is right. Just because they picked up bin-banished items doesn't mean they're recycling them. And saying "Drop Off Locations" are a viable option is absolutely ridiculous. You already pay for an unworthy Recycling Program and then you have to drive an hour to drop off the trash your already paying to have picked up, genius.
The lack of aluminum recycling in Texas is reprehensible. Every soda/beer can should be redeemable for the $.05 you pay when you purchase the item (like in most advanced states).
Get off your tall horse Austinist, the recycling efforts in Austin and Texas are well below the norm.
She might (unlikely, but possible) have been staying in a condo - Austin, unlike smarter towns, did recycling first at single-family homes, only moving to the multi-family properties much later and in a desultory fashion (only requiring the private haulers to pick one or two things to recycle rather than integrating them into the city program).
That woman is an idiot. That's what happens when you melt your brain watching the tee-vee all the time.
Not that she will post our comments to her blog on her page, but surely she should know better than making sweeping false statements about an entire city without any research what so ever. Perhaps she should ask more than mommy and daddy to get the real scoop. And drop off locations are available to us as well as curbside pick up. The only one on the tall horse here is the smug Cali girl who thinks she is so much farther ahead than us stuck here in the dark ages in Austin.
It is disappointing that Texas doesn't charge a refundable deposit on aluminum cans. Or glass bottles for that matter. I never thought of Iowa as an "advanced state" but they certainly have a leg up on Texas: http://www.bottlebill.org/legislation/usa.htm
If only I had a mailman nemesis to help plan a journey up to Michigan to cash in on the $.10 a bottle refund. I could then retire and move on to my dream of repainting the 4 cramped, uncomfortable lanes of MoPac to 2 luxury, extra-wide lanes.
HA!
RE: above
Nah, we tried it. Didn't work, somehow the automated machines knew we never paid that deposit...
you try and try but it's so hard to beat the man at his own game!
All for the recycling of the non-renewables like aluminum and plastic, but as for her citing cardboard, envelopes or white paper, the best thing to do IS the throw these away, which I do despite recycling being available in my neighborhood.
Using paper uses trees, a renewable resource. The more the paper industry uses trees instead of post-consumer waste, the more trees get planted. We should preserve old growth forests, but the timber industry uses/plants younger forest and young, growing trees absorb more carbon from the atmosphere as they grow.
If that sounds bogus to you, read Dr. Patrick Moore's analysis (GreenPeace co-founder).
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/august2007/290807_b_scare.htm
I'm disappointed that many local businesses don't make the effort to recycle.
#8, the problem is that while the paper companies plant pines which grow quick and fast and are great for lumber and paper, they still clear cut native trees in places like Northeast Texas to plant forests of fast growth loblolly pines. Some of those native trees are pines like longleaf pines which are becoming scarce in East Texas, a lot of what they've clear cut are trees like ancient oaks and maples and hickory trees.
The cost and energy of recycling outweighs the benefits. Sorry, but you actually waste more energy by recycling.
The only thing that is worth recycling is aluminum cans.
Everything else? Just toss it away!
Austin does recycle most of the things she lists, but she is right about the plastic - Austin doesn't recycle plastic fruit containers or plastic bags:
http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/sws/recycling.htm
That said, I don't think San Fransisco recycles plastic bags either. However, they have banned them, which is something I would like to see happen in Austin.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/03/28/MNGDROT5QN1.DTL
Even if the city doesn't recycle plastic bags, HEB does accept them as recyclables as mentioned in the austinist post.
Damn! It sucks that she has to approve comments to make them visible.
TVWeek's Editor is Greg Baumann (gbaumann@tvweek.com). Maybe he can help with a retraction if she won't?
Recycling plastic is pointless. It requires more energy than making plastic from oil. Better solution: stop drinking bottled water & take your own bag to the store to tote your purchases home.
I drink bottled water from glass bottles when I buy it at all. I never know the difference between the plastics used, but I know some of them can leech estrogen and give you moobs if they get heated which they almost always do during transport.
Mostly I just drink sink water though.
hmmm so water from a plastic bottle makes your boobs bigger? why am i still an A cup?
I said moobs not boobs.
And not all plastic bottles, just some types that I don't know what they are.
Read the Water Stored in Plastic section of this site:
http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Plasticizers/Out-Of-Diet-PG5nov03.htm
I'm sorry but the card says, "Moops." The correct answer is "Moops."
still, what the freak is a "moops" ???
man boobs
I am from San Francisco and I also thought there was zero recycling in Austin, and I've been living here for a year and a half. My apartment complex only has a single dumpster, no recycling container, so I don't know where I'm supposed to recycle. I've thrown out computer monitors, tons of paper and cans, when I first moved to Houston from Norcal I felt weird adjusting to throwing cans and paper and plastic in the garbage, but I felt it was something I just had to get used to in order to adjust to texas (like most CA expats I didn't move by choice). So when I came to Austin and saw only the one dumpster at my apartment complex I assumed it was the same. I looked at the links and I still don't see information about how the city will pick up my recyclables, but I'll ask the complex managers about it on monday. Obviously I'm not typically going to be driving to some drop off point to recycle, that isn't a practical recycling program. I do drop off grocery bags usually at Safeway because I go there anyways. I think Daisy's post is still somewhat accurate. I remember going to ACL last year and there were cans strewn all over the ground just like in that episode of family guy where they go to Ireland, my sister from NY commented about it and I said, hey that's how it is in TX. I'm not sure if I remember seeing very many recycling bins at ACL, if there were they sure weren't used, the whole zilker park field looked like one big bin. -Andrew
Oh and also Moops are not man-boobs, Moops are from Seinfeld and are actually a mis-spelling of Moors (but not as far as George is concerned). -Andrew
They have Safeways in Austin now? Are you sure you're not in Dallas?
I've thrown out computer monitors
--So you couldn't like - donate that to Goodwill or anything. Because being the savy environmentalist you are you knew how much trees love to eat old computer parts. Bravo, old chap. Mother Nature says, "Thanks a mil."
(like most CA expats I didn't move by choice)
-- So Ahnold poked you in the ass with an electic cattle prod until you got in your car and drove to Texas?
I remember going to ACL last year and there were cans strewn all over the ground just like in that episode of family guy where they go to Ireland, my sister from NY commented about it and I said, hey that's how it is in TX.
--Because OBVIOUSLY all the people throwing cans on the ground were from Texas and not shitty tourists trashing our land.
Please move back to California. We don't need more trash in Texas.
#25, rest assured that there are indeed recycling stations all over Zilker Park for ACL, and they have volunteers scouring the park picking up recyclables that don't make it to the bins because drunken louts from all over North America and beyond come to the fest and drop their crap everywhere. Austinites are aware of this already, as they even make recycling depositories avaialble at the Stubbs concerts. Just because you saw the stuff lying on the ground doesn't mean it's not going to get collected overnight and disposed of properly for recycling purposes.
Sorry if I came off pretty harsh, I was trying to decribe the cultureshock that you feel when you move to any state or place that doesn't have very much recycling after you've gotten really used to separating your trash into the various groups being a daily habit. Obviously I am not very environmental, but that is the thing about at-home recycling pickup, it makes it easy for people like me who are definitely not committed recyclers to practice it so habitually that it becomes second nature. The first time that one moves to any of the many states where that isn't an option and you go to take your trash (that you've separated automatically) to the same dumpster it just feels really weird.
Goodwill would never have wanted either of my obsolete monitors, they were huge and radiated more heat than a stove, they needed to die and go to appliance heaven. But again the solution of driving them to some alternate place misses the point, it is semi-lazy convenience minded people like me who produce the most garbage that recycling programs need to target. A serious recycling program is integrated into trash pickup.
And I'm sure lots of ACL visitors are from out of town, but they're overwhelmingly from states that like texas don't commonly have recycling and it would be good for ACL to try to impress upon these tourists the need to throw cans into the appropriate bins.
#28- I can't go back to my beloved city by the bay, so you're stuck with me dude.
They do have Safeways in Austin. Texans call them Randalls but they are really Safeway.
No, they're Randalls. If they were Safeways they'd have a sign that says Safeway above the door.
Andrew, again, you and Daisy are missing the point. At-home recycling pickup IS readily available, abundant, and actively encouraged throughout Austin. You need to speak to your landlord if it isn't an easy option where you choose to live (every apartment I lived in offered recycling).
http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/sws/recycling.htm
As for monitors, I've had one picked up down there, but I can't remember the name of the organization, sorry.
I don't mean to be harsh either, honestly, but we've now had TWO Californians who couldn't figure out how to throw their own waste out who assumed it must've been a problem with the whole city -- not them! I lived in Austin for nine years and I've been in San Francisco for three, and the only difference I've noticed in terms of home-based recycling is that San Franciscans are much more smug about it at the same time that they're much more likely to use their recycling bins as second garbage cans (or as toilets, but that's another story). As for ACL, you should've seen the mess after a concert in GG Park I helped clean up recently!
Austin is a very friendly place (until it's unfairly maligned), and I hope you'll take the time to learn about it and clear up some of those misperceptions behind your "culture shock" ... but in the meantime, please please please stop throwing your recycling in the dumpster!
Best wishes from SF,
Amy
"And I'm sure lots of ACL visitors are from out of town, but they're overwhelmingly from states that like texas don't commonly have recycling and it would be good for ACL to try to impress upon these tourists the need to throw cans into the appropriate bins."
Guy, you are so full of shit your eyes have turned brown. You need to think before you speak so you don't come off as so ignorant.
What I mean is - CALIFORNIA IS NOT THE ONLY STATE THAT RECYCLES.
Just about everybody has been recycling in America since the early 90s when CFCs were outlawed. Even Mississippi has a recycling task force. It's not like flying cars and virtual reality and time machines.
Dear people who hate Californians:
Many apartments here don't recycle. The city only fairly recently (few years ago) began requiring any multifamily properties to offer it; and gave them such a weak requirement that it's not surprising it was missed by many tenants. (And as far as I know, there's zero enforcement of the weak rule anyways). It's NOT the same thing as pickup-at-home; not remotely similar. If they just tell the city that they're picking up one or two things from a list, they qualify, even if their recycling container isn't readily accessible; well publicized; or, as far as I can tell, existing in this plane of reality.
The proper blame should be placed on the city - other areas START recycling at the multi-family properties (makes sense, because of economies of scale). Because we don't offer city garbage service to those places, though, they don't get city recycling either, so we were left with a half-assed rule hardly anybody knows about which was supposed to make the private haulers turn into rainbow-pooping sunshine factories.
What I know is that I've lived in about 10 apartment complexes in Austin and almost all of them had recycling containers available to residents. The containers ran the gamut from blue bins to large labeled trash cans. The one apartment complex I lived in that didn't offer recycling put out containers after I talked to the manager about it and that was maybe 8 years ago. Throwing out your cans or glass or paper because you "want to but can't" recycle is no excuse for not recycling.
still waitin for my moobs.. c'mon moobs!
Animal.