Getting Greener

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Who knew that a single head of lettuce can take up to 25-years to decompose in a landfill!  Momentum Recycling who picks up our paper waste in Salt Lake County wants to educate us that food waste gives off gases when it decomposes, like methane that’s 23 times stronger than the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Food waste in landfills also emit ammonia which really does a number on increasing our crappy winter inversion air. So far we haven’t had any home pick-up service to get food waste. Recycling minded individuals in Salt Lake County can dispose of their food scraps by taking them to HelloBulk! at 1185 S. 300 W. (a local drygoods and refill store), The Front Climbing Club at 1470 S. 400 W. and Wasatch Resource Recovery at 1370 W. Center Street in North Salt Lake. This latter company has Utah’s first anaerobic digester that can process organic and food waste to turn it into sustainable natural gas and fertilizer. For under $20 a month you can get a bucket delivered to your home with another bucket inside of it with a roll of compostable bags. Collect your food waste and then place it on the curb in the larger bucket every week and voila! The waste will be turned into good gas.  Certainly you can also throw scraps into your garden, but if you’re not one who possesses the passion given to those born with a green thumb, sign up with Momentum or get it to one of the collection sites.

Salt Lake City suspends brown curbside yard waste cans from being emptied from January 22 to March 3, 2024 to save fuel costs and reduce emissions in the valley, with the exception of dead Christmas trees. Do you have a holiday tree that needs to be composed? They ask that you cut up your tree and place it out in your brown bin, and especially don’t over-pack the bin so nothing shakes out. Make sure that you remove all ornaments, lights and tinsel before you load up your bin. If you live along the Wasatch front other than Salt Lake City, your tree will be picked up the day after your regularly scheduled collection day in January from Jan 4-31st. Do NOT put the tree in your waste cans or recycle cans. Flocked trees are NO BUENO for recycling of any kind. If the tree is over 8 ft. gall, cut it in half and leave it by the curb, and if snow covers it up, uncover it? Murray, Draper, SOJO, and Cashe Valley have drop off sites for dead trees. Provo will pick up trees on the curb and St. George has drop offs at the Reuse Center on Brigham Road. Here’s a great site for drop off rules around the state: pickyourownchristmastree.org/UtahTreeRecyclingDisposal. Freshly cut Christmas trees last between 4-5 weeks if properly watered.

Water, Water

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“Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink” is from a poem from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge. Imagine living with a view of the Great Salt Lake and knowing that all that water south of Willard Bay is undrinkable. It might gnaw at you knowing that being surrounded by or within close proximity of it you can’t benefit much from the salty water except to rely on helping it to create great powdery snow in our winter and create the random ‘lake effect’ that boosts some storms into mega downpours.

This phrase also may relate to residents of Summit County, especially those living in Oakley City. Although there are lakes and rivers surrounding the town that saw massive spring runoff from the Unitah mountains which increased the flow during last year’s massive snowpack, it’s only now that the area is seeing more water.  You see, back in May of 2021 the Oakley City Council was forced to adopt the following moratorium: Ordinance 2021-6: “Moratorium on all building permit approvals requiring a new connection or extension of an existing connection to city water and a moratorium on installation of new landscaping that requires irrigation with the city culinary water.” The town leaders had to stop all building permits of land improvements such as new homes because the multi-year drought leading up to 2021 created a very scary situation for the area and they wanted to avoid a potential water crisis which could have created a scarcity for the city’s current residents. The Council was also worried that if they did run out of water there wouldn’t be any way to fight fires in and around the town. Projects that already had permits were allowed to continue but no permits requiring water connections were allowed for six months, and the Council had to extend the moratorium longer than expected to find more resources. Residents were encouraged to restrict water use to outdoor watering every other day to help ease the demand.

Fast forward to November 2023 and the City Council has now lifted its moratorium on new development and is now allowing new water hookups/permits. How so? It appears that a very deep well has been found and the City will be able to tap into it come June of 2024. Officials believe that this new source of water will quadruple its current supply to the approximately 1,500 residents of the town.

This pause in construction was unique in modern days to a Utah town but many Western states and towns have also had to restrict building permits, such as communities in and around Monterey, California. Luckily we had a ton of snow last year and a good spring so drought has ended in much of California, Nevada and Utah for now. As the locals here say, ‘Fast and pray’, or PRAY FAST that we have a great snow year!

If Wishes Were Fishes

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It’s that time of the year when many folks make new years resolutions. Hell, I stopped doing that years ago because I was a failure at keeping my promises to myself. It would be more appropriate to say what I wish for, dream about, to wit:

-that anyone living in a major Utah city must be required to recycle at least paper and plastic and that if it’s unaffordable then the local governments should kick in part of the cost.  Around two-thirds of all paper products in the U.S. are being recycled but only 10% of plastics are recycled.

-that public transit (UTA buses, TRAX, light rail) should be free-always. I pushed for that when I was a board member at UTA and generally got laughs, but with our bad air and all the new construction of ‘transit oriented’ new housing in our major cities Utah needs to help not just the air but give a break for low income folks as well. I believe ‘Santa Cox’ likes the idea but the legislature has to figure out how to fund it. There’s talk on the hill that there may be a one year pilot program to test an all free transit system.

-massive new affordable housing options. There is a ton of land owned by the state, local governments and even non-profits/churches that could be dedicated to extremely low income, permanent housing. For those people in the service sector making poor hourly wages, single parents and especially seniors on fixed incomes need help now and will need more help in the future as prices go up for housing, utilities, food, insurance, transportation, etc.

-95% of the men I know personally are terrific people. My dream is that they convince the other 5% that are warlords, rapists, and murderers of women, elders and children around the world to stop the violence. Women could pull the old Lysistrata story out, where sex is withheld from men until they stop warring, but both past and modern history prove that this 5% don’t care about women and will rape and murder them regardless in their quests for power, control, and money.

Finally, I wish that 2024-the next presidential year for us-doesn’t turn into utter hell of worse vitriol than what’s currently out there and that by some magnificent miracle the U.S. Congress figures out budgeting solutions and passes reasonable bi-partisan bills. This current Congress proved to be the 2nd laziest, most embittered group ever elected.  The 118th Congress is on track to be one of the most unproductive in modern history, with just a couple dozen laws on the books at the close of 2023. This is the fewest since at least the 101st Congress in 1989.

If wishes were fishes we’d all cast nets. May you have a great year end and may we all survive 2024!