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August 07, 2008
Tucker Hart Adams on Greening Colorado
The greening of Colorado is a tiny subset of what the rest of the world is experiencing. I just read in the Colorado Biz magazine an article by Tucker Hart Adams, a highly respected economist. She nailed the problem about limited resources when she said "Resources are limited -- the basic economic problem is infinite wants confronting finite resources -- and it behooves us all not to waste them."
Your improved bottom line should be the economic stimulus you need to green your home and business. That's the focus I've had in pushing to green the hospitality industry. Environmental issues arise from waste, as do economic issues. Reduce, reuse, and recycle are as pertinent today as they were thirty years ago. Rethink your approach to resource consumption to improve the economics of your business and home.
Ms Adams has watched as her community has increased its recycling efforts, people asking for tap water in restaurants rather than buying bottled water, to name a few of the changes she's seen through the years. Have you signed the pledge to not buy any more plastic bottles? It's hard to find food items not packed in plastic, though many still try.
Seattle, Washington, has the right approach to recycling, from an economic standpoint. Each home is provided with recycling containers that will take lots of recyclables, including yard waste, for placing at your curb. Pick up is free. Free! Not extra, as most recycling efforts I know charge. However, Seattle's trash pick up is expensive. Interestingly Seattle has the highest recycling rate in the country.
Wellesley, Massachusetts, has an interesting approach to their trash. The town dump combines trash disposal, recycling bins, and second-hand items like furniture, appliances, books, etc. I hear there are no rats to be seen. Wellesley is an affluent Boston suburb, and they haven't shied away from tackling the trash/recycling issue. As with the generation entering adulthood in the 1920s and 30s, little is wasted in Wellesley.
One comment Ms Adams made in her article was about the amount of resources required to make bottled water -- plastic, transportation, and disposal. Even processing the water to bottle consumes resources. Then there's the health issue related to what plastic does to the food stored in it that hasn't been addressed.
The resource conservation we can't connect with as readily as we can items that can be recycled is that relating to water and energy. We see the water cycle as water falls on the land, runs to the sea, evaporates and rains again. Some of the water that falls on the land seeps into deep aquifers to be pumped up again some day. Water seems endless, but the quantities we need are depleting the potable water that's so important to life. And to the hospitality industry.
Energy seems infinitely available too. But at what cost? Extracting oil and gas products from the ground has environmental ramifications. Processing and distributing it consumes more resources. Burning it impacts our air quality. Nuclear, solar and wind energy have drawbacks too. The issue is reducing our consumption to reduce all of the impacts and drawbacks.
The hospitality industry relies heavily on all kinds of resources -- water, energy, metals, wood, food, and items going into products used. It's up to each and every one of us, owner, operator, staff, and guests to be more conserving, to be more respectful of this planet we inhabit. And more respectful of each other.
It's up to us to take action in greening our community, place of work, and home. As more renowned economists, like Tucker Hart Adams, notice the economics of greening your world, more of us will pay attention, understand, and act on environmental issues. I think it's prudent to take action earlier than later. Be the cutting edge of greening the hospitality industry.
Posted by Kit
