One group of people who really know how to enjoy a good beer is contruction workers. After a hard day of work in the sun doing a new construction or a building renovation filling up their Jacskon dumpter rental, that will never say no a fresh beer from Mississippi or elsewhere. And they will not gain weight or gain any disease from it, and they burn enough calories in their work so that their body can take it.
Carried out by the local services, the collection of household waste is assured from one to four times a week depending on the sector. Since 2010, the cities have also been collecting door-to-door multi-material recyclable waste (all paper, cardboard, metal and plastic packaging). Volunteer drop-off points are also available to everyone in recycling centers. To know the points of voluntary contributions, consult your interactive map. The collection frequencies are determined very precisely according to the habits of the users so that the public service best meets their needs. From 1 to 4 collections per week, the frequencies and the circuits adapt to the type of habitat (suburban areas, dense collective habitats, the historic centers) and take into account the state regulations regarding waste management in force to ensure tours of safe garbage collection. The large metropolis collect bulky items (called bulky items) for all residents. The accepted items are scrap metal, used furniture, doors and boards, mattresses and box springs, carpet and tiles, cardboard and large packaging, small DIY waste... Refused objects must be deposited in a recycling center: household appliances, Hi-Fi, rubble, hazardous waste (acids, solvents, phytosanitary products ...), tires, plants, batteries and batteries, waste oil, construction waste... A warning is be careful what you put on the sidewalk. Items that are not accepted will not be picked up. It is also necessary to take out bulky items the previous evening on the sidewalk in front of your home.
Everyone, it seems, is interested in low carbon transitions. But haven’t we been here before? The 1970s was a period of economic, ecological and state crisis that spawned conflict, contestation and debate about the future direction of society, of which alternative technologies and re-directed strategies were a critical part. Yet such solutions remained largely at the demonstration or experimental stage and were seen as exemplars of new technologies, lifestyles and diverse forms of social control over what might have been an alternative socio-technical transition in housing, infrastructure, design and cities.
By the 1980s it was clear that this space of experimentation was closed down and the emerging logic was the dominance of neo-liberalism. In 2021 we are once again in a period of significant structural change. Recycling and waste management best practices are not yet well implemented over the nation, according to the junk removal specialists at Waco dumpster rental. But what are the similarities and differences between these periods when thinking about low carbon transition? How might similarities suggest deeper, fundamental mobilisations in transitions; and how can differences make us more sensitive to the context specificities of transitions? This workshop’s purpose is to create a context for thinking reflexively and constructively about the wider lessons and insights of the crises in the 1970s for the challenge of creating a low carbon transition today. The workshop is aimed at practitioners and researchers working on contemporary transitions, with a view to making productive use of some historical perspective.
This event will take place on Wednesday 21sh April 2021 in New York.
Rationale
The reason for organising this workshop is to create a context for thinking reflexively and constructively about the wider lessons and insights of the crises in the 1970s for the challenge of creating a low carbon transition and better waste management control today. The reasons for doing this are three-fold starting with the simple but moving to the more complex:
- Research, development and piloting in the 1970s of diverse eco-technical solutions – socially useful production, Alternative Technology, eco-homes, renewable energy, green living, local food, autonomous cities, architectural and eco-design that all seem to be prefigurative and earlier demonstrations of the technologies and responses currently being considered within the portfolios required for systemic transition today. (Landscape changes produced new pressures and context for experimentation)The way in which such solutions remained largely at the demonstration or experimental stage and were seen as exemplars of new technologies, lifestyles and diverse forms of social control (what we might call governance now) of what might have be an alternative socio-technical transition in housing, infrastructure, design and cities. (Was it that these were outside the regimes – and configurational in blending technology, application, development within experiments – yet not directly connected to regime).
- The response was some public funding of experimental programmes, but in addition a turn to nuclear energy, and larger-scale energy technologies. However, the opening of new fossil-fuel markets relieved the crisis, and development logics across many social and economic domains continued largely as before. Grassroots experimentation of the 1970s struggled into a hostile, neo-liberal climate in the 1980s, before disappearing from public view and consciousness (though it had perhaps always been a marginal thing, even at its height).
- Critically the period of economic, ecological and state crisis spawned a period of conflict, contestation and debate about the future direction of society of which alternative technologies were apart. By the 1980s it was clear that the space of experimentation was closed down and the emerging logic was the dominance of a neo-liberalism as a form of state and economic response. Critical response privatised and liberalised infrastructure, uneven development, ecological modernisation.
Yet in 2021 we are once again in a period of significant structural change. Economic crisis, ecological crisis associated with climate change and crises of state response. And yet again huge degree of interest in different eco-technical responses to crisis that seems to reflect period of experimentation in 1970s (and even 30s). But what are the similarities and differences between these periods when thinking about low carbon transition, pollution and recycling?
Structure of the Workshop
The workshop aims to create a structured dialogue to critically compare the socio-technical responses in the 1970s and contemporary responses. A variety of municipalities, civic associations, grassroots groups, and workers movements responded to crises in the 1970s with visions, strategies and initiatives for realising alternative urban spaces and practices. Examples include the Alternative Economic Strategy and the Urban Centre for Alternative Technology. Both spawned a diversity of experimentation with more socially inclusive and ecologically sound urban development. Attracting greater state and corporate interest today, initiatives like these, community energy and food co-operatives, propose similarly diverse solutions to our contemporary crises. With initiatives then and now in view, the workshop will explore responses to crisis through three steps:
The organisers prepare a short position paper expanding upon the rationale and themes for the workshop and what is required from participants. An introductory session at the workshop will set out key questions and the broader political, economic and ecological crises in the 1970s and now. Speakers are asked to write a short paper with their reflections of the lessons and relevance of the 1970s for today’s debate, including Tucson waste management services.
At the workshop we will have a series of structured conversations between a pair of researcher/activists active in the 1970s and 2010s based on the following themes: a) the politics of crisis in the 1970s and 2000s; b) economic development strategies – Socially useful production and green growth; c)urbanism and planning (autonomous cities and low carbon cities); d) housing and architecture -(eco housing and low carbon housing); and, e) energy technologies and infrastructure (city-scale renewable energy, low energy urban development – hard and soft energy paths and low carbon energy infrastructures). In each session the broader questions framing the discussion are: What are these experiments seeking to do – re-enforce, adapt or transform economic activity and relationship to ecology? How do these experimental projects link to pre-existing regimes? What are the resonances and the dissonances between the 1970s and the contemporary low carbon transition?The proceedings will be recorded, transcribed and with the papers then produce as an edited book looking at the contextual and transferable lessons of the 1970s for the current low carbon transition. We will also produce a short briefing note on historical lessons for contemporary proposals on the basis of the workshop, for distribution to practitioners, policy-makers, and corporate representatives interested in low carbon transitions.
Society is entering a period when the so‐called “baby‐boomers” are now reaching the legal age of retirement. By 2020, the 65+ age group will represent close to 30% of the population in Western Europe. The business community, financial institutions and municipalities must develop sustainable products and services to meet the changing needs of this growing segment of society. The purpose of this proposal is to secure funding to develop a model for ecologically, financially and socially sustainable residential estates in sparsely populated areas that guarantee an acceptable long‐term return on investment for their developers, their future residents, the US municipalities where they are located and society at large. The methodology proposed to drive this development is the establishment of a Community of Action consisting of representatives from the business community, financial markets, the municipality in which the project will take place, thought leaders and experts.
This Community of Action will:
- Identify the residential needs of citizens 65 years and over;
- Identify state‐of‐the‐art applications, processes, products and services to minimise the environmental impact of the property;
- Develop a sustainable business model for the construction, marketing and operation of the estate that sets a new benchmark for environmentally‐friendly housing.
The Do SMART Business booklet aims to provide small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) around the world with simple and concrete ideas for taking their own actions towards more environmentally and socially responsible business operation. It encourages changing small feasible things that make an immediate difference without requirement of large amount of investment. All actions are easily replicable, encourage the colleagues to do likewise and help to improve working quality as well as triple bottom line. Various guides, tools and instruments published in recent years are either targeting large companies in developed countries or targeting rather technical experts.
Trying to stay focused, most existing approaches cover only a certain part of the CSR universe (e.g. eco-efficiency, human rights). However, the vast majority is not written in an inviting style. Instead, the Do SMART Business booklet: aims to be fun, short, explicit and well illustrated; will be content- and not process-driven, and not provide any detailed guidance on how to implement a waste management process. Instead, it will clearly signpost interfaces with existing management schemes (such as quality management), highlight the added value of taking a structured approach and refer to existing guidelines. It will cover as broad as possible set of CSR aspects, reaching from workplace issues (e.g. harassment/bullying, training), marketplace (e.g. fair pricing and fair trade, local sourcing), community (good neighbourhood, corporate volunteering), environment (material and energy efficiency, transport, ecological footprint) to governance (business ethics, stakeholder engagement).
Stagnation in the volume of waste produced
We note that the volume of household waste produced per inhabitant (783 kg in 2021) is struggling to decrease. Its level has been almost stable over the last decade while the USA has set itself the objective of reducing the production of household and similar waste to 701 kg by 2030 – a drop of 15% compared to 2010 which will only be achieved at the cost of a strong acceleration of the current trend. With regard to the main indicators (quantity of waste produced, recycling, elimination), the country is today below the performance of the European average and even further behind the most advanced Member States (Germany, Austria, Netherlands , Scandinavian countries). Serious progress remains to be made because the unsorted portion of household waste, the residual household waste which is thrown in bulk into the general bin, still represents 349 kg per year and per inhabitant. However, 80% of the waste collected, in particular organic waste and that falling within an extended producer responsibility sector, could be the subject of recovery adapted to their nature if they were sorted by users and oriented towards their specific treatment channels.
Waste reduction is thwarted by insufficient management. We can point out the insufficient coordination of the actors. The states set the legislative and regulatory framework in which the quantified objectives for waste reduction and treatment appear, with a deadline. These guidelines are implemented by the public waste management service carried out by the public intermunicipal cooperation establishments which generally assume, directly, only the collection competence and delegate the treatment competence to intercommunal unions. To ensure the implementation of national legislative objectives at the local level and continuity between prevention, collection and treatment, effective programming is therefore necessary”. However, neither national programming nor state plans, which are intended to coordinate actions undertaken at the territorial level but which remain insufficiently precise and restrictive on investments, nor local waste prevention programs household and similar, which are struggling to become widespread and to coordinate with the action of treatment unions, are not up to the challenges to be taken up. Therefore it is recommended to improve planning through the unification of national programming and the adoption of a specific implementation local programs.
