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Dalton
Roberts |
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My hat is off to those citizens who worked hard to get signatures to require a referendum on the city’s plan to stop weekly curbside pickup of recyclables. They fell a little short but they identified, activated and organized those who know how important recycling is. We have come a long way in raising awareness about recycling. Just a few years ago I carried my recyclables to Normal Park School where citizen volunteers separated and processed them. While the grass roots were stirring at that time, city government yawned along in the same old rut of burying everything. On the last street where I lived, I never saw a single blue bag. The day I came to look at my current home must have been the day recyclables were to be picked up because there were blue bags in front of most residences. I remember thinking, “This is where I want to live. I don’t want to live on a street where people don’t recycle.” Neither do I want to live in a town that doesn’t recycle. Admittedly, the percentage if citizens recycling since curb pickup began is nothing to brag about. But I keep thinking, if we could just make a community leap in awareness comparable to the one that created the Normal Park program, and then created curbside collection, we might be on the threshold of a model program that would be the envy of the nation like our riverfront development. You cannot convince me that Chattanooga will continue to be viewed as a renaissance city without a solid recycling program. The renaissance spirit must pervade every level of our social, political, economic and environmental life. With his emphasis on “small is beautiful,” E.F. Schumacher has helped America to realize that concrete jungles are not fit places for human habitation. There must be lots of green space and services that support quality living. Schumacher wrote, “A spirit of violence permeates the whole of our science, technology and economics … It makes us think absurdities such as infinite growth in a finite environment were possible; that we could go on finding and burning as much oil every ten years as in all previous history; that science could cure the sickness of the environment.” This spirit of violence is reflected in our attitude toward trees. Put a chainsaw in the hand if an idiot and you have a walking environmental disaster hunting places to happen. He will cut down all the hardwoods when building a subdivision and then name the streets “Oak, Pine, Cedar and Spruce.” Unfortunately, the street signs bearing those names don’t make oxygen for us to breathe. I am not saying it was an idiot who cut down the big, incredible tree in Coolidge Park but I am saying it was a mistake growing out of a the violent spirit Schumacher so accurately described. We could have delineated an area of possible danger around that gorgeous tree and put up signs. Our citizens are literate. The can read signs. We put warnings on cigarette packs. Why not put warnings around big trees and save them for their esthetic and health benefits? If we cut down every big tree that might possibly fall on someone, we are headed for a level of violence that would have even shocked Schumacher. Nothing protects trees better than paper recycling. Years ago, it startled me to discover how many trees I could save with my little stack of newspapers. That was when I started carrying my recyclables to Normal Park. Speaking a few months ago in Spartanburg on how we built a great city, I was happy no one asked about the quality of our recycling program. It is encouraging that some members of the city council are taking a creative look at it. Let us support them by getting those blue bags on the street whenever the city picks them up.
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