The City of Roses

On one of my other blogs, I posted a video and critique of the Chinese government's use of pesticides. I referred to them as hypocritical for spraying pesticides over the heads of pedestrians while simultaneously promoting sustainability and environmental consciousness. I feel they are making a mistake and I'm not trying to propagate conspiracy theories, I just thought it would make for interesting debate.

Now is time for another debate, one much closer to home. The bike path I frequently take to campus has been under construction for quite some time. This is fine for me, because the construction will preserve the path and keep the hillside next to it from falling down. However, I have become upset with the way the city is constructing their retaining wall.

1. They are using brand new sheets of plywood for the concrete forms. Even though they built the wall in sections, they would dispose of all their materials before moving on to the next section with completely brand new 2x4s, plywood sheets, and anchors.
2. While I don't know if the wood was recycled elsewhere, I know the anchors used to hold the forms were just thrown away. Furthermore, they are to be buried behind the retaining wall rather than reused or recycled.

Here are some photos and the reasons I'm upset:

This first photo is just a small picture that shows several of the brackets lying on the ground behind the retaining wall. They're metal and plastic and are used to hold the wooden forms in place when pouring concrete.

What you do is put the bracket all the way through the void that is filled with concrete, let the cement harden, and then remove both the brackets and the wooden forms. While most of the brackets have to be cut, there is no reason the city can't recycle the metal and plastic. For those of you who've forgotten, plastic is a petroleum-based product. Gas prices are rising and we're running out of fossil fuels. The city is basically ignoring this reality and burying pieces of recyclable plastic they already have!

You're probably looking at the one photo thinking I'm making a big deal out of nothing. Here's another photo that shows the back of the retaining wall and the sheer number of brackets strewn behind it. Do you understand now why I'm so upset? We live in a city that prides itself on its leadership in the environmental sustainability movement, but our city's own construction employees are wasting materials!

Does it matter that we have special drainage gardens set up to filter street run off before it goes back into the streams? Does it matter if we have an extensive public transportation system and even a car share program to cut down on traffic and pollution? Not if we are displacing those conservation efforts in other areas. This is a situation where the right hand doesn't know (or care) what the left is doing. It's unacceptable.

Last month, the American Marketing Association organized its annual conference to focus on topics of sustainability. The number of people in attendance suggest to me that there are people in this city that care about what we're doing to the environment.

I'm just worried how much more of this wastefulness is going on elsewhere in town.