Local Self-Reliance

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For the past several years, the good folks at the Institute for Local SelfReliance in Washington, D.C. have been working to help urban residents gain greater control over their lives through the use of low-technology, decentralist tools and concepts. We strongly believe that more people (city dwellers and country folk alike) should be exposed to the Institute's admirable efforts . . . which is why we've made this "what's happenIng where" report by the ILSR staffers one of MOTHER's regular features.

More and more folks—all over the country—are taking their lives into their own hands and building solar homes, sowing community gardens, and launching small businesses. However, in some situations where alternative action is needed, individual efforts simply can't accomplish enough. For example, a local church or civic group can—in the course of a year—recycle some hundreds of tons of material that would otherwise become a trash problem ... but dealing with the millions of tons of waste that's produced annually by a large urban area demands large-scale planning.

A PRACTICAL PLAN

Recently, the Institute for Local SelfReliance had an opportunity to design such a plan . . . to handle the 600 tons of waste produced in Atlantic County, New Jersey each day! Our aim was to find ways to recycle as much of the refuse as possible . . . since the county's landfills are not only filling up fast, but are health hazards as well!

Here, in summarized form, is the course of action the ILSR proposed (copies of the full study are available—from the Institute—for $6.00 postpaid):

[1] That county residents and businesses separate their own refuse, using one container to hold paper, glass, and metal . . . another for any remaining waste.

[2] That the county build two waste-processing plants, the first to further separate the paper, glass, and metal for resale . . . the second to convert the remaining material into energy.

[3] That all county landfills except two be closed (the remaining pair of dumps would be upgraded to eliminate possible health hazards).

We felt that the two-group separation of refuse would be relatively easy for residents and economical for the county. It should require only a few minutes per week for a household or business to sort its refuse into two piles. (The messier, more time-consuming jobs of bundling the paper, separating the glass by color, and sorting magnetic and nonmagnetic metals—that must be done prior to sale—could be accomplished by a paid staff at the recycling center itself.)

Most of the refuse that can't be recycled could then be burned to produce steam energy . . . which, in turn, could be used to provide space heating and cooling for the new casinos soon to be built in Atlantic City.

BUT IS IT LOCAL?

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