There is a lot of talk about getting Austin to go greener, discussions of making biking more accessable for commuters, and tax breaks for those utilizing solar power, but what about recyling? Reisidential complexes (apartments and multi-family homes) that house 100 or more people, business with 100 workers onsite at the same time and office buildings with 100 or more employees onsite at the same time - within the city limits of Austin - are required to provide recycling and recepticals. But local homes and businesses are not required to recycle if they don't meet these standards. Recycling is also an additional fee for Austin residents and business owners. A residential home pays about an extra $14/month depending on their waste removal provider. It seems that if we are so intent on Austin going green, we should start with something that is already in place and maximize its potential.
If we created a bill that required all residents in Austin to recycle, more residents would recycle. Presently, many won't or can't because of the extra fee for removal, or they just don't want to deal with the extra hassle. Many servers at Threadgills, a local establishment says it pains them to not recycle. In Vermont and other states, residents can be ticketed for not recycling. A $90 ticket is an incentive to recycle. Austin could ticket folks for not recycling and use this extra money for public works (like street repair - which we will soon be out of money for).
Solar energy and commuter bike incentives are great ideas. Taking something that is already in place, like recycling, and requiring it through legislation would cost little to enforce but would bring a big positive result. Or we could just spend more time arguing about Voter ID.
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In his blog post, Push for Recycling, T explains the benefits of recycling and proposes new ideas to increase the amount of recycling that takes place in Austin. After discussing the places where recycling is already required, T gives examples of where recycling should be mandatory. The posts’ overall main point is a proposal for a bill that would require all residents in Austin to recycle. Then, after making recycling mandatory, an incentive will be created by punishing those who don’t follow the new law by ticketing them.
ReplyDeleteOver all, the post is well written and brings up many intelligent ideas and proposals. The post examines a topic that is very popular in our society today, making it a very attractive read. T’s evidential support comes from the Residential Recycling Guidelines list from the Sold Waste Services provided by the City of Austin.
I agree completely with the proposal. There is one idea that I recommend adding to the post. Why not require all of Texas to recycle instead of just Austin alone? Wouldn’t that create an even larger benefit? Imagine if Houston, Dallas and Austin were all required to recycle by law. What a difference that would make! I think ticketing people for not recycling is also a brilliant idea. Understanding the consequence for not recycling would be a ninety dollar fine, I would certainly recycle! If we don’t do anything thing to protect our earth and make it more “green,” who will? This is a great proposal and a wonderful post overall.
I would like to make a comment to my classmate's blog, "When in [Texas]" regarding making Austin greener by using bicycle and recycling. At first, I totally supported the idea of making a town/city greener, or even more a state or entire of USA Greener. Of course, we cannot make the Whole United States greener, but we have to give it time gradually slowing. I wish we could automatic change the whole United States to greener. We know we cannot do that because if we do that then it would change the people and confused them.
ReplyDeleteHowever, back to the point- What is the next step of making Austin Greener- using bicycle. That is a great idea of adding bicycle. The question is will we succeed to use bicycle automatic or probably not going to happen since we are so used using car and faster transportation. There are pros and cons of using Bicycle. We do not have to pay gas! We just simply fill up the air in the bicycle tires. The less risks of collision if we use bicycle- it would be much safer for us as human. We would not have to worry about getting speed ticket or other kind of tickets. We would definitely save ourselves money from gas and tickets, collisions, so on. In addition, most important, the air would be much greener if use bicycle more often. Lastly, we as the human being, would be much in shape and healthier by riding bicycle. We could have live much longer!
Secondly, making Austin Greener by recycles as usual but the new idea is to create a new bill by giving someone ticket if did not recycle. Ouch!I did not like the idea of using ticket to charge us. That would hurt at first but at least it is like kicking our butts to recycle. I personally think it would be okay to create the bill for the ticket part because doing recycle is as easy as you think about it. It only takes few minutes to recycle. In addition, using the ticket will help and encourage people to recycle. In the end, the people will realize how healthy and useful, greener this would be and then they would be thankful for this. Otherwise, if someone got ticket and paid for it- that is all right, we need the money to fix up whatever we needed.
Therefore, it is a definitely a great start to create a bill to have ticket someone that did not recycle and using bicycle as greener transportation.
To T's blog, I like his topic and how he post about recycling and using bicycle. He did pointed out good ideas and suggestions. But one thing, I was not crazy about the idea of charging us as ticket but as I thought about it, either way it had to wake us up and realizing about the global and saving our lives. If we didn't use the ticket, what other punishment would we use as?