Spring 1986 RAIN Page 5 SHOWERS Recycling Urban Tree-Waste Brings in Money for Cities For the past few years, Cincinnati, Ohio (385,000) has been turning the wood waste from 50,000 trees lining its streets into a revenue-generating resource by selling the wood back to residents. The forestry division contracts annually with local tree service companies to prune or remove about 3,000 city-owned trees. The contract requires that all wood and wood-chips be deposited in the city's secure, all-weather storage yard. Officials estimate that if the contractors had to bring the wood to the landfill, the extra hauling and dumping expenses would be $15,000. Wood with a diameter of more than three inches is cut into firewood lengths and sold at $50 per cord. Smaller pieces are chipped and sold for $5 to $10 per load. Wood sales are held periodically on Saturdays from late autumn to early spring, when the storage yard is filled with cut and unsplit wood and chips. During the winters of 1982-83 and 1983-84, wood sales produced a gross profit of more than $27,000, with only $2,000 in expenses related to sales and storage. The money generated is used to plant new trees in areas where they were removed. (Source: PIN Bulletin, January 25, 1985) The winter issue of Regeneration newsletter reports on a similar plan beng considered by the Commerce Department in Philadelphia along with the U.S. Forest Service. The plan for Philadelphia's Fairmont Park would give underpriveleged teenagers the opportunity to learn the lumber and wood processing trade while at the same time providing wood products needed for the city's housing renewal efforts. Ralph Segman, creator of the plan, estimates that between 3,000 and 15,000 dead or diseased trees could be taken from the city's 8,000-acre park every year. “This could turn into a very nice little sawmill,” said Segman. The project would use every scrap of wood available to produce firewood, wood chips, and even kitty litter, in addition to lumber. The Repair Mall Puts Together the Pieces Here's a dilemma many of us have often faced. A small but vital appliance breaks down. What do we do about it? Do we go to the trouble and expense of getting it fixed? Or do we go the often easier, but more wasteful, route of simply tossing it out and buying a new one? This is the problem that Porter Shrimer addresses in his proposal to create “repair malls” described in the winter issue of Regeneration, the quarterly newsletter of Rodale's Regeneration Project (see RAIN XI:4, page 26). “An average American spends an estimated $29 a year for repairs on personal and household goods, amazingly little when you stop to think of the incredible menagerie of gizmos we use every day. Wristwatches, toaster ovens, clock radios, video games, fitness equipment, lawn and garden gadgets, personal computers .... Never before have our lives been so filled with high-tech goods—and yet systems for repairing these goods remain in the Dark Ages.” The repair mall proposal would put several repair shops all under one roof, all run by highly skilled local laborers, working with local resources, contributing to local economic activity. It would be a kind of “one stop shopping” for repairs that would make the fix-it versus toss-it balance more favorable. Shrimer suggests siting the repair mall in a “regenerated building,” perhaps a refurbished factory or warehouse. This could take advantage of tax incentives for renovating existing buildings. According to Shrimer, tentative business plans for such a mall have been drawn up. “For a ten-shop mall, somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 square feet might be needed. It's been estimated that just one mall of this size could employ over 20 people and generate as much as $700,000 in gross income annually.” He notes that the function of the mall could also be expanded beyond repairs to include other kinds of recycling and refurbishing operations, and also locally produced new goods such as arts, crafts, furniture, and clothing. For more information, contact Regeneration Newsletter, 33 East Minor Street, Emmaus, PA 18049. Agricultural Productivity Act Signed into Law The Agricultural Productivity Act, the first alternative farming systems legislation passed by Congress, has been signed into law. The original proposal, first introduced in 1982, was drafted to implement major recommendations of the 1980 report on organic farming prepared by a USDA study team. The newly-enacted version ended up as a separate subtitle in the 1985 farm bill. The most innovative feature of the legislation is to establish research projects to compare three different types of farming systems—farms using conventional technology, farms in transition from conventional to alternative methods, and farms using alternative agricultural methods. Each farming system would include 12 or more farms, last a minimum of five years, and continue as long as 15 years if necessary to obtain complete evaluation of cropping sequence cycles. USDA is also required to inventory, classify, and assess existing alternative agriculture studies, reports, and other materials, and to make available to farmers and ranchers any that would help them move toward low-cost, environmentally sound farming systems. (Source: Alternative Agriculture News, January 1986)
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz