Garbage will be sucked underground in proposed Edmonton airport lands development

5/29/2012

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Image is a futuristic example and not a photo of the actual city.
EDMONTON - Noisy garbage trucks won’t be rumbling down neighbourhood streets in the new City Centre Airport Lands. Instead, residents will dump their bags of waste into street-level garbage chutes that connect to an underground vacuum collection system, which will whisk the bags off to a nearby sorting plant.

The proposed community of 30,000 will also have “agri-hoods,” a term coined to describe residential areas with large green spaces between block of apartments and townhouses where people can grow food, city architect Barry Johns told about 250 people at the Food in the City Conference in the first update on the airport lands in many months.

If there are surplus vegetables, the city might be persuaded to put on a mobile farmers’ market in an LRT car and zip to another party of the city, said Johns, adding local food production is a key element of the community plan.

“There are about 1,000 community garden plots in Edmonton and that number will almost double when the airport lands are built out,” said Johns, adding that rooftop gardens will be part of the mix.

If all goes well, migrating birds will use the wetlands being built on the north end of the site near stormwater lakes where he hopes kids will be able to wade.

The master plan for the projected community north of downtown is getting the final touches and will go before council this fall, said Johns. Construction could start in two years and student housing for NAIT is ready to go.

Johns’ firm, in a joint venture with Vancouver firm Perkins and Will, is devising architectural guidelines in the plan to ensure buildings meet the goals of a carbon neutral housing as mandated by council.

The density of the new community will be about 55 housing units per hectare, lower than the central community of Oliver at 70 units per hectare, but much higher than the 1950s’ Westwood community at 10 units per hectare. Vancouver’s False Creek has 100 units per hectare.

Heating and electricity for the entire community will be provided by a biomass heating plant on the site, said Johns, adding there have been talks with a number of private utility companies interested in building the plant.

Water use in Edmonton is about 209 litres per person per day, and the airport lands will aim for an average of 138 litres daily, party by using grey water to flush toilets.

A simple measure like getting rid of garbage trucks goes a long way to reduce carbon emissions and eliminate the need for wide alleys and roads, he said.

The city will install the services and then plots of land will be sold off to developers, he said.

Despite the environmental conditions put on buildings, Johns said he did not think there would be difficulty attracting developers to start building in the community, which will have very few single-family homes, but many townhouses and four-storey apartments.

“The market is changing. Young urban people are demanding a quality of life and want crowds,” said Johns.

Also, retiring boomers don’t want to live in suburbia.

Some delegates expressed concern that building houses to higher environmental standards might make them more costly.

Johns said one solution is to take the costs of a parking stall out of a the price of a condo for people who do not have a car. That could save $50,000 to $75,000 on a condo priced at $350,000, he said.

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Article from:  http://www.edmontonjournal.com/life/Garbage+will+sucked+underground+proposed+Edmonton+airport+lands+development/6685279/story.html
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Haywood extends financial olive branch to towns for trash hauling

5/23/2012

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Haywood County will help ease the burden faced by towns as they start trucking their trash all the way to the county’s far-flung landfill.

County commissioners will allocate more than $100,000 to towns to help cover the added cost of the trash journey, from more trash workers to extra trash trucks. Starting this summer, the county will no longer allow towns and commercial trash services to bring their loads to a mid-point trash transfer station in Clyde and instead will make them go all the way to the White Oak landfill, an extra hour or more roundtrip.

During a public hearing on the county budget this week, commissioners made a point to highlight the county’s contribution to towns’ trash operations.

The county will save hundreds of thousands by closing the transfer station to town and commercial trash trucks but will share some of those savings back with the towns to offset the burden and ideally prevented town residents trash rates from going up.

The county will pay the towns of Waynesville, Canton and Clyde $15 for each household that they pick up garbage from.

“All of them were very supportive of that funding formula,” said County Manager Marty Stamey.

Clyde will receive $7,500; Canton will get $23,700; and Waynesville will be allocated $80,670.

The goal of the money is to prevent towns from having to pass the buck onto their residents. Canton and Clyde have committed to not raising their rates.

“The whole concept of this was to alleviate the burden on those citizens,” Stamey said.

However, Waynesville is still recommending a rate increase, though the amount is unknown.

“What the county is offering us doesn’t come anywhere close to what the additional costs will be,” said former Town Manager Lee Galloway, who is acting as a consultant for the town until July. The estimated cost of hauling its own trash to White Oak is $160,000.

Galloway added that the town appreciates the money that the county is able to provide.

The county hopes the contribution will be an annual allocation, according Stamey.

The county already subsidizes the trash journey to White Oak for county residents who don’t live inside the town limits. County residents without town trash pick-up drop their garbage at dumpster lots located in communities throughout the county. The county then pays to have it trucked to White Oak.

Maggie won’t see any assistance, because for it, the White Oak landfill isn’t any further than the transfer station in Clyde.


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'Garbage Czar': Greenwich native a recycling pioneer

5/10/2012

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Former Greenwich resident Briggs Baugh, who recently won the Recycling Pioneer award from the Connecticut Recyclers Coalition for his decades of service, is seen at his home in Stamford. Baugh, who makes sculptures out of recyclables, was the first chairman of the Greenwich Recycling Advisory Board.
Though nearly four decades have passed since then-Greenwich resident Briggs Baugh spearheaded the town's recycling program, he said his friends still hail him as the uncontested "garbage czar."

Settling into his armchair amid clutter of a week's recyclable goods awaiting pickup, the bespectacled Baugh, now living in Stamford, recounted Earth Day 1970 as the genesis of his commitment to the environment. At the request of the first selectman, he coordinated a humble volunteer effort that year to recycle cans and paper goods in collaboration with Greenwich High School, then translated it into a mission for town recycling.

"The thing about pioneers is that, when you're ahead of the pack, you get arrows in your back," said Baugh. "When I started advocating for recycling, my friends thought I was a nutcase because recycling hadn't yet appeared on the scene."

Though his labors to develop a recycling program were a "frequent uphill battle," said Mary Hull, executive director of Greenwich Green & Clean and a longtime friend, Baugh eventually helped his hometown become one of the state's best recycling communities.

The Connecticut Recyclers Coalition, which educates and advocates for improved recycling, recently honored Baugh's achievements with its Recycling Pioneer award.

"He was very creative and ahead of his time," Hull said. "He was really an innovator who was doing stuff that no one had thought of before. People said recycling would never happen, but he got people excited about the future."

One of his most significant contributions was his formation of the Greenwich Recycling Advisory Board, which created a drop-off center for recyclables and continues as an advocate for the town's environment. He served as its first chairman and published its quarterly newsletter, "GRAB Bag," which explained the process of recycling after 1987 state legislation made it mandatory. He also negotiated a deal with Marcal Paper Mills to form a mixed paper drive that saved the town over $1 million, he said.

"Greenwich has tended to be a forerunner in recycling," said current board Chairman Sally Davies, who cited Baugh as a driving force behind innovation in the town's recycling. "One of the amazing things about Briggs is that he is as excited about recycling as he was 40 years ago. He has such enthusiasm."

The town's recycling program now continues to modernize, having switched last August to a single-stream system in which all recyclable goods are mixed into a collection truck and sorted at a resource recovery facility.

Patrick Collins, assistant superintendent at the Holly Hill facility, said single-stream has nearly doubled recycling in Greenwich -- 977 tons were collected from blue bins this February, compared to 527 tons in February 2011.

Baugh said he is heartened by how his successors have continued his mission of sustainable living. "There is a greater appreciation for the treasure of our planet."

Baugh exercises his enthusiasm for recycling at home by leaf composting in his backyard and creating art from recycled bottle caps.

"At his house, you can't eat at his dining room table because it is full of recycled products that he doesn't want to throw away," Hull said, laughing.

While Baugh never anticipated becoming a leader in Greenwich recycling, he said he eagerly took on the role when he realized that his plans had the potential to significantly reduce waste and do a service to the environment.

"When there's a new idea, somebody has to be a voice for it," Baugh said.


Read more: http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/local/article/Garbage-Czar-Greenwich-native-a-recycling-3547203.php#ixzz1uTiDvRNo 
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