Phil Gutis's Blog
Was it Just Garbage?
November 14, 2007
Posted by Phil Gutis in Living Sustainably , The Media and the Environment
Maybe I was wrong. Just perhaps it wasn't, as I wrote some 20 years ago in The New York Times, just garbage.
The Times recently ran a story about recycling and how Seattle is attempting to increase its already commanding lead in how much of its solid waste is recycled. In the report, J. Michael Kennedy of the Times says that around most of the country, "recycling is in the doldrums -- and in some cases backsliding -- despite the sounding of environmental alarms about global warming and shrinking resources."
Kennedy then harkened back to 1987 and what he describes as a country "jarred into action by images of a barge carrying garbage from Long Island being towed up and down the East Coast in a search to unload."
"The wandering barge had a profound effect on the American psyche," Kennedy writes, "and within three years most states had passed laws requiring some kind of recycling."
The memories of chasing that barge are perhaps some of the most vivid of my short reporting career. I remember how desperate Captain Duffy St. Pierre and his crew were for human interaction after weeks at sea on a small tugboat dragging the garbage barge.
And I remember how, moments after I had just finished my two-hour interview with Duffy and his crew off the coast of Key West, another boat pulled up with the reporter from Newsday and how I demanded that the captain of my motorboat get me to shore as fast as humanly possible so I could alert my editors and file my story. (This was in the days before cell phones...)
And finally I remember the look of distaste on the face of the clerk at a fancy hotel when I rushed up to the desk, dripping wet from the spray coming off the motorboat and panting from the dash from the dock. Despite my pleas about being a New York Times reporter who desperately needed a room, I could not sway him so I sat my drenched self down in their lobby and wrote my story right then and there.
The good news is that my story made the front page the next morning. And without my knowing it, the coverage of the barge apparently sparked a huge interest in recycling that continued for years.
It is hard to imagine that interest in recycling has dropped off. After all, my local high school and the grade school my nephew attends have put huge bins for paper recycling in their parking lots. The draw is that the schools actually sell the paper and make money to support extra-curricular activities. And the bins are always full.
But at the same time, I'm also appalled at the number of people I see each day at Penn Station who casually toss soda cans and bottles and used newspapers in the trash. Even when there are nearby recycling bins. I'm always tempted to dive in after the improperly disposed of recyclables, but until now I've managed to restrain myself.
Perhaps the days for restraint are over. Perhaps what is needed is another front-page event or two or three or more to highlight our callous disregard for our planet's limited resources.
Let's hope it doesn't come too late to make a difference.
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