Having been a landscape contractor myself, I know how difficult it is to design systems that are always “perfect” when it comes to the controllability of the ratio of how much water is needed to how much is applied. New technologies make these problems less difficult to solve.
I want to take this opportunity to encourage the county to consider what types of voluntary and mandatory water conservation steps can be taken to insure that the quality and availability of our water resources is maintained.
A panel of landscape contractors could make suggestions for technologies that could be required as code to insure that sensors, timers and other automatic monitoring technology be utilized on new projects – with the possibility of additional credits to homeowners and businesses for the retrofitting of existing systems considered.
Any increased costs to implement these types of systems would not substantially affect competition if everyone was required to use them. Anyone that’s driven by a water system functioning in a driving rainstorm can testify to the waste unmonitored systems can produce.
Even our groundwater is precious. Well systems should have some sort of guidelines and safeguards to insure that people with these types of systems are not lulled into thinking they have unlimited access to these resources simply because they’re not paying to city water companies.
Once again, I know this infringes on the time-honored feeling that individual ownership entitles one to unlimited use of natural resources – but this is an obsolete philosophy given the realities of limited resources.
A second concern is that despite the county’s progress with recycling – a significant amount of usable resources are still being sent to the landfill. Construction materials that might be recycled at the landfill gates free of cost might give our commercial contractors a way of getting rid of their waste and allow subcontracted handling companies to re-market these materials at reduced costs to citizens unable to purchase new materials.
Additionally, it seems that many of our resorts and communities are not required to recycle at all but still dump all their garbage – plastic bottles, cardboard and all – together with nonrecyclable trash. These gaps in our system need to be addressed by making tenants and/or resort owners responsible for the same efforts at recycling the rest of the populace is now required to participate in.
Finally, we need to make more of an effort to provide additional locations for people to get rid of common hazardous waste materials – i.e., batteries, light bulbs, electronics equipment, etc. – so they aren’t tempted to “hide” these items in their regular landfill wastes. My wife and I very much appreciate the plastic bag recycling cans out in front of a number of our more progressive food markets. The recycling of plastic bags and bottles must be at the forefront of our efforts.
In the same way that public and commercial trash receptacles are located outside businesses and public areas for trash – we need to begin to allow the concept of having more public receptacles for specialized and separated wastes creep into our social consciousness – even if it requires more and more cans.
The results of these efforts will be felt for generations and the need for them surpasses any reticence we have about the visual impact these extra facilities might have in our immediate surroundings. Personally, I’d rather see an abundance of garbage containers wherever I go than imagine that these materials are being deposited onto and into our lands and water systems.
Budgeting and planning for the appropriate amount of workers and resources needed to keep our communities clean and safe and our disposal and recycling systems effective are part of the greening and sustainability movement we are embracing.
Yet we should not expect that county government will do all these things for us – as citizens we have the ability, without much of the red tape – to take the lead in these efforts. But that’s an issue for another commentary.
James BlueWolf lives is an artist and writer. He lives in Nice.
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