Members in attendance: Jim Savicki, Janis Owens, Judi Vose, Dick Rothschild, Marion Thayer, Len and Nancy Nowak.
1. Treasurer’s Report. Marion Thayer reported that we have received a check form Foodies as part of their “Help a Local Organization" program.
Here is how it works. When you spend over $100 at one time, at check out, you can write Sustainable Duxbury on your receipt, and place it in the box located at the customer service counter. We will get 5% of any amount over $100. It’s that easy!
Keep that in mind and tell your friends that they can help us out while they shop.
2. Oceana. Recently Janis and Jim attended a meeting in Woods Hole held by the local representative of Oceana (www.oceana.org). They are working to end expansion of offshore drilling in the US. We were urged to take part in this campaign and to call Mass senators weekly and voice our opinions about offshore drilling. There is also a petition campaign that one can take part in. There will be another meeting later in the fall. Check out their site for more info. We will be doing a blog about our meeting soon.
3. 10/10/10. The members present decided that as part of this “Global Work Day” (organized by 350.org), we will be helping The Tarkiln project by obtaining, and planting, shrubbery or trees on the Tarkiln site. More information to come on this.
4. Anti Plastic Campaign. Jim S. plans to meet with the new superintendant of schools and present him with his reusable “ Dux Water” bottle and at the same time pursue the Idea of removing bottled water from the schools.
Janis O. showed a great youtube video on plastic bag use: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLgh9h2ePYw and is heading a team that is going to talk to local merchants about plastic bag use in Duxbury. If interested, contact her at Janisowens@mac.com and get on board.
5. Sus Dux is heading the “Green Team” once again at this year’s Island Creek Oyster Festival and there is still time to get free admission to the festival by signing up for a three hr shift helping the Green Team. If you have expressed an interest you MUST sign up by going to www.islandcreekfoundation.org/festival/volunteer and registering as a volunteer to get your free admission. If you do not register on line you will need to pay at the door.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Minutes from Meeting of August 4, 2010
SUSTAINABLE DUXBURY
SUMMARY OF MEETING
August 4, 2010
ATTENDING: Jim Savicki, Janis Owens, Beth Hudacko, Holly Groelle, and Susan Fontaine.
Topics Discussed:
1. Alternative Engergy Committee meeting, 6/20, Jim Savicki:
AEC hosted an exciting talk by Kevin Schulte of Sustainable Energy Development, a company that sells and installs wind turbines. He thinks the MET tower is an unnecessary step in Duxbury and that by skipping it the wind turbine could be supplying electricity much sooner.
2. Sustainable Duxbury blog, Janis Owens:
Janis has set up a blog for Sustainable Duxbury. You can find it at sustainableduxbury.blogspot.com check it out and post a comment!
3. Edible Wild Plant Walk by John Root, Saturday, 7/24:
The Wild Plant Walk, which we helped publicize, was a success with more than 40 people of all ages attending. Check out his website: http://www.johnroot.net. There is some great information about what plants can be eaten from the wild, the wild that surrounds us every day.
4. Types of grass doing well this summer, Holly, Jim, Beth:
It was suggested that we gather data on which grass varieties do well in this summer’s harsh conditions. The data could be useful for decreasing lawn watering. Has anyone seen results of using the “Pearls Premium” seed that you purchased last year?? Or other types that you can suggest?
5. Island Creek Festival Saturday, 9/11, 3-11 pm, Jim Savicki:
The Green Team, being managed by Jim S., Judi V , and Mike W., needs 50 volunteers. Volunteers get free entry into the festival (worth $50) and High School volunteers get community credit for donating 3 hours of time. Volunteers will also be needed 9/12 for next day clean-up. Go to the Island Creek web site to register as a volunteer by Aug 15th and be eligible for great prizes!! http://www.islandcreekfoundation.org/festival/volunteer
6. Plastic Bottle and Bags won the vote for the next Sustainable Duxbury project, Jim Savicki:
Eighteen people voted. Plastic bottles and bags got 15 votes, anti-idling 9, and town composting and promoting biking tied with 7. We briefly discussed how to eliminate bottled water sales at the High School. Jim will find out if the proceeds from the bottled water vending machine support any High School programs. We discussed alternatives to bottled water such as a spigot with enough clearance to fill water bottles or something more sophisticated that would provide filtered and/or chilled water. We briefly discussed the possibility of sponsoring a community pledge to not use plastic bottles or bags.
7. Disposal of items that are not currently covered by recycling, Holly Groelle:
Holly presented her strong concerns about the lack of an environmentally responsible way to dispose of certain highly polluting trash, such as medicines, batteries, and light bulbs. Jim S. will find out if the transfer station has special battery disposal. Holly is working with a group in Boston on the issue of medication disposal as there appears to be no non-polluting method currently available.
8. The 350 .org people ( who sponsored Hands Across the Sand ) are planning a “Global Work Day” for 10/10/10. We will be deciding in September if we want to be part of this event by doing something locally to have a direct effect (albeit small) on climate change. Check out the 350.org site and let us know your thoughts anytime.
9. Next meeting scheduled for Wednesday, September 1. Have a great August !!
SUMMARY OF MEETING
August 4, 2010
ATTENDING: Jim Savicki, Janis Owens, Beth Hudacko, Holly Groelle, and Susan Fontaine.
Topics Discussed:
1. Alternative Engergy Committee meeting, 6/20, Jim Savicki:
AEC hosted an exciting talk by Kevin Schulte of Sustainable Energy Development, a company that sells and installs wind turbines. He thinks the MET tower is an unnecessary step in Duxbury and that by skipping it the wind turbine could be supplying electricity much sooner.
2. Sustainable Duxbury blog, Janis Owens:
Janis has set up a blog for Sustainable Duxbury. You can find it at sustainableduxbury.blogspot.com check it out and post a comment!
3. Edible Wild Plant Walk by John Root, Saturday, 7/24:
The Wild Plant Walk, which we helped publicize, was a success with more than 40 people of all ages attending. Check out his website: http://www.johnroot.net. There is some great information about what plants can be eaten from the wild, the wild that surrounds us every day.
4. Types of grass doing well this summer, Holly, Jim, Beth:
It was suggested that we gather data on which grass varieties do well in this summer’s harsh conditions. The data could be useful for decreasing lawn watering. Has anyone seen results of using the “Pearls Premium” seed that you purchased last year?? Or other types that you can suggest?
5. Island Creek Festival Saturday, 9/11, 3-11 pm, Jim Savicki:
The Green Team, being managed by Jim S., Judi V , and Mike W., needs 50 volunteers. Volunteers get free entry into the festival (worth $50) and High School volunteers get community credit for donating 3 hours of time. Volunteers will also be needed 9/12 for next day clean-up. Go to the Island Creek web site to register as a volunteer by Aug 15th and be eligible for great prizes!! http://www.islandcreekfoundation.org/festival/volunteer
6. Plastic Bottle and Bags won the vote for the next Sustainable Duxbury project, Jim Savicki:
Eighteen people voted. Plastic bottles and bags got 15 votes, anti-idling 9, and town composting and promoting biking tied with 7. We briefly discussed how to eliminate bottled water sales at the High School. Jim will find out if the proceeds from the bottled water vending machine support any High School programs. We discussed alternatives to bottled water such as a spigot with enough clearance to fill water bottles or something more sophisticated that would provide filtered and/or chilled water. We briefly discussed the possibility of sponsoring a community pledge to not use plastic bottles or bags.
7. Disposal of items that are not currently covered by recycling, Holly Groelle:
Holly presented her strong concerns about the lack of an environmentally responsible way to dispose of certain highly polluting trash, such as medicines, batteries, and light bulbs. Jim S. will find out if the transfer station has special battery disposal. Holly is working with a group in Boston on the issue of medication disposal as there appears to be no non-polluting method currently available.
8. The 350 .org people ( who sponsored Hands Across the Sand ) are planning a “Global Work Day” for 10/10/10. We will be deciding in September if we want to be part of this event by doing something locally to have a direct effect (albeit small) on climate change. Check out the 350.org site and let us know your thoughts anytime.
9. Next meeting scheduled for Wednesday, September 1. Have a great August !!
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Where do the Blue Bags Go?
Last May a few of us from Duxbury visited the SEMASS facility to see what happens to our trash that is thrown out in the blue bags. Dick Rothschild reported on this visit and here is his report.
Does the headline sound as though this column is about the Sacramento hardcore band Trash Talk or maybe the recent verbal donnybrook between Tampa Bay’s Carl Crawford and Joe Madden and Ump Davidson at a Red Sox game? It’s not. But, read on. You are about to become the first in your neighborhood able to hold forth on where all the blue trash bags go, and what happens to them after they are dropped into the pit at the Duxbury Recycling Center.
Twice weekly Duxbury’s DPW (Department of Public Works) delivers a truckload of
our blue bagged MSW (Municipal Solid Waste) to a huge facility in West Wareham, Massachusetts known as SEMASS.
Here, believe it or not, a million tons of trash a year, including ours, is used as fuel to generate electricity. In the process our dependency on fossil fuels, greenhouse gas emissions and need for more landfills is reduced.
The Rube Goldberg-like Schematic Process Diagram below may help you visualize the process which goes like this:
The trash (MSW) which arrives by truck and railroad freight car is dumped on the floor of the Tipping Hall where it is bulldozed onto a conveyor and fed into a shredder. The shredder chops it into 4 x 4 inch chunks and dumps them onto a second conveyor. At the top of this conveyor a magnetic device removes all the ferrous metals which are then shunted via another conveyor to trucks to be sold and recycled. You would think there is not much iron or steel in trash, but the SEMASS facility recovers over 50,000 tons a year.
The chopped up trash (with iron and steel removed) is conveyed to one of three boilers. These are big babies housed in a building almost nine stories high. Burning trash chunks as fuel, these boilers produce steam, which turns steam turbines, which turn generators to produce electricity.
SEMASS generates 590,000 megawatts of electricity from the million tons of trash it processes yearly, enough to satisfy the electricity needs of all the households in Duxbury plus many in Kingston.
A byproduct is made by introducing water and lime into the boiler exhaust just before it enters the air pollution control equipment. The combination comes out as the major component of sheetrock. Another byproduct is fly ash, sometimes used in concrete. A scrubber removes most of the airborne pollutants, making the exhaust from SEMASS cleaner than that from either a coal or oil fueled electric generating plant.
While 51 towns use the SEMASS facility, it is neither municipally nor state owned. Along with 33 other EfW facilities and 6 biomass facilities in the U.S. SEMASS is operated by Covanta Energy Corporation, a Subsidiary of Covanta Holding Corporation.
Covanta has negotiated long term contracts with the towns which use SEMASS. Duxbury pays Covanta $98.50 a ton to dispose of its trash. Covanta sells the electricity produced from trash to NStar at 5¢ per kW. And, it sells recyclable recovered materials and byproducts at market prices.
As I write this I can almost see some of you environmentally responsible investors rushing to computers or phones to buy some Covanta Holding Corporation stock (NYSE: CVA) Without wanting to take wind out of your sails, I should point out that in spite of making and selling products from raw materials which they are paid to accept, this business, to date, has been less than a bonanza for stockholders. Total return over the past 5 fiscal years has been a measly 1.6%. With CVA stock selling recently at $15.43 a share and 2009 earnings of 66 cents a share the stock has a lofty P/E ratio of 25.2. The environmental dividends are worthwhile, to be sure, but, alas, no cash dividends are paid.
On the other hand, Charles Schwab forecasts a 10% annual growth rate for Covanta over the next 5 years, better than many other environmentally responsible enterprises.
As far as stock picking goes, though, you are on your own. As William Feather puts it, “One of the funny things about the stock market is that every time one person buys, another sells and both of them think they are astute.”
Thinking Green
Trash Talk
Does the headline sound as though this column is about the Sacramento hardcore band Trash Talk or maybe the recent verbal donnybrook between Tampa Bay’s Carl Crawford and Joe Madden and Ump Davidson at a Red Sox game? It’s not. But, read on. You are about to become the first in your neighborhood able to hold forth on where all the blue trash bags go, and what happens to them after they are dropped into the pit at the Duxbury Recycling Center.
Twice weekly Duxbury’s DPW (Department of Public Works) delivers a truckload of
our blue bagged MSW (Municipal Solid Waste) to a huge facility in West Wareham, Massachusetts known as SEMASS.
Here, believe it or not, a million tons of trash a year, including ours, is used as fuel to generate electricity. In the process our dependency on fossil fuels, greenhouse gas emissions and need for more landfills is reduced.
The Rube Goldberg-like Schematic Process Diagram below may help you visualize the process which goes like this:
The trash (MSW) which arrives by truck and railroad freight car is dumped on the floor of the Tipping Hall where it is bulldozed onto a conveyor and fed into a shredder. The shredder chops it into 4 x 4 inch chunks and dumps them onto a second conveyor. At the top of this conveyor a magnetic device removes all the ferrous metals which are then shunted via another conveyor to trucks to be sold and recycled. You would think there is not much iron or steel in trash, but the SEMASS facility recovers over 50,000 tons a year.
The chopped up trash (with iron and steel removed) is conveyed to one of three boilers. These are big babies housed in a building almost nine stories high. Burning trash chunks as fuel, these boilers produce steam, which turns steam turbines, which turn generators to produce electricity.
SEMASS generates 590,000 megawatts of electricity from the million tons of trash it processes yearly, enough to satisfy the electricity needs of all the households in Duxbury plus many in Kingston.
A byproduct is made by introducing water and lime into the boiler exhaust just before it enters the air pollution control equipment. The combination comes out as the major component of sheetrock. Another byproduct is fly ash, sometimes used in concrete. A scrubber removes most of the airborne pollutants, making the exhaust from SEMASS cleaner than that from either a coal or oil fueled electric generating plant.
While 51 towns use the SEMASS facility, it is neither municipally nor state owned. Along with 33 other EfW facilities and 6 biomass facilities in the U.S. SEMASS is operated by Covanta Energy Corporation, a Subsidiary of Covanta Holding Corporation.
Covanta has negotiated long term contracts with the towns which use SEMASS. Duxbury pays Covanta $98.50 a ton to dispose of its trash. Covanta sells the electricity produced from trash to NStar at 5¢ per kW. And, it sells recyclable recovered materials and byproducts at market prices.
As I write this I can almost see some of you environmentally responsible investors rushing to computers or phones to buy some Covanta Holding Corporation stock (NYSE: CVA) Without wanting to take wind out of your sails, I should point out that in spite of making and selling products from raw materials which they are paid to accept, this business, to date, has been less than a bonanza for stockholders. Total return over the past 5 fiscal years has been a measly 1.6%. With CVA stock selling recently at $15.43 a share and 2009 earnings of 66 cents a share the stock has a lofty P/E ratio of 25.2. The environmental dividends are worthwhile, to be sure, but, alas, no cash dividends are paid.
On the other hand, Charles Schwab forecasts a 10% annual growth rate for Covanta over the next 5 years, better than many other environmentally responsible enterprises.
As far as stock picking goes, though, you are on your own. As William Feather puts it, “One of the funny things about the stock market is that every time one person buys, another sells and both of them think they are astute.”
Monday, June 28, 2010
Hands Across the Sand
This past Saturday, June 26, Sustainable Duxbury joined over 900 events around the globe to join hands and form a human line in the sand to say NO to offshore drilling and YES to clean energy. There were events like ours in 37 countries and all 50 states. We were joined with people from all over the area, from other towns such as Sharon, East Bridgewater, and Marshfield. We even had a bike rider join in from the MS bike marathon that was going on in town. He took time from his charity marathon to add his hands and voice to another good cause, the life of the ocean. He was from the North Shore so could not join his local event so he found one near where his bike ride was so he could join in. We had entire families joining hands with us. It was a wonderful and powerful moment to look at the line of people along the edge of the water, standing for clean beaches, clean environment, clean energy.
107 people signed the petition that is being sent to Sierra Club in California. It is a petition to President Obama and states: "Today I joined hands with citizens across the country and around the world. Together, we call on you to say no to offshore drilling, yes to a clean energy future, and get our country off our addiction to oil."
Hands Across the Sand was originally organized by Dave Rauschkolb who is a surfer and restaurant owner from Seaside, Florida. He stated this group back in October, 2009 when the Florida legislature was taking up a bill to lift the ban on offshore drilling off the coast of Florida, well before this disaster in the Gulf. On February 13, 2010, they had 80 beaches sign on for events all over Florida that involved over 10,000 people. The bill has been put on hold. When the BP disaster occured, Dave went global with his event. Partners that have joined in this movement include 350.org, Sierra Club, Audubon, Alaska Wilderness League, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, and so many more. Visit handsacrossthesand.org for a listing of more of the groups that supported this event.
We have uploaded photos from our event to the Hands flickr group and you can find this at www.flickr.com/groups/joinhands. There are also many videos from events around the world at youtube. Go to www.youtube.com/user/handsacrossthesand.
To loosely quote the words of Dave Rauschkolb, the disaster in the Gulf is a wake up call. Even as the disaster keeps unfolding and continuing, BP and other oil companies continue to push for new offshore drilling anywhere oil can be found. Offshore oil drilling is a dirty, dangerous business and no one industry should be able to place entire coastal economies and marine environments at risk. We should be a leader in expanding cleaner energy sources yet we still cling to fossil fuels due to the overwhelming influence of oil money.
I am currently reading a book entitled Kick the Fossil Fuel Habit by Tom Rand. This is an man who believes that we can and need to switch to greener technologies and we have those technologies right now. This could be a whole new boost to economy and the earth if we embrace it.
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