Thursday, October 16, 2008

Did You Know About the Recycle Ike Program?

Did you know about the Recycle Ike program?

No, it is not an effort to recreate the storm, but an effort by the City of Houston to recycle all the debris left by Ike. We are talking about 8,000,000 cubic yards of green debris. This is a mixture of trees found in the area, including sectioned trunks with bark. The mayor is trying to keep as much of this debris from taking up space in the landfills. Right now, much of it is being ground to make mulch and compost. But the city is looking for ideas from environmental-conscious folks to put as much of the debris to good use as possible. The contest is open to anyone (except those related to the judges) and there are cash rewards for the top three ideas. There are some stipulations the ideas must meet, but I know there are many folks out there with some good ideas. I am really hoping that my friend Montucky , my father-in-law and my brother-in-law will come up with a winning idea each! These guys are full of great ideas and here is an excellent place to put them into practice!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't I wish I had a solution to the "green debris" problem! As I looked out across our valley here today there was a temperature inversion and the upper valley was completely filled with smoke. This time of year the debris (slash piles) from logging is being burned, the local solution to the same problem you have in Houston.

The sad part is that just a hundred miles south of here, a large school is completely heated and I believe powered by biomass waste. Why that isn't being done in more places is impossible for me to understand.

In your area though, that wouldn't be a usable solution because you don't have the problem of bio-waste all of the time. I personally think that if we were really concerned with alternate energy usage and cheaper energy, we would figure out how to use these resources instead of wasting them.

I tears me up on days like today to see the smoke from burning slash piles on the mountainsides for miles around, good energy not only being completely wasted, but polluting the air as well, and at the same time I can see a train of over a hundred car carrying coal to be shipped overseas for energy use.

Personally, I think the energy companies have us exactly where they want us and we are either helpless or unwilling or too stupid to do anything about it. (They would not make their huge profits in the bio-mass energy market. From their profits come huge contributions to politicians who in turn support the energy companies and help suppress their competitors, keeping down the use of bio-mass energy.)

silken said...

Rats! I thought you were going to have a great idea!! :) all I can think of is using it somehow to help on the beach or to rebuild some of the beach homes. But I think they are wanting to be able to use the ground material and not the larger pieces...

tripleZmom said...

That's a great intention!

silken said...

I think it is too jersey...got a good idea?