The Clean and Green Club

THEN read my response. And then see if you want to add a second comment indicating a change in your position. I ask that you not delete your original, but label your second post as in response to my comments.

I’m a fan of Nas and have enjoyed many of his videoblogs, especially covering Middle East peace and Israeli/Palestinian relations. But I think he may be a victim of the shiny object he thinks he sees here.

Trash is not a simple thing. To me, burning is the very last resort—what you do with the little bit of stuff you can’t do any better with. Combining all types of trash together in one big burning pile doesn’t seem like a great disposal method to me. And I’m skeptical of the claim of zero toxicity, though I’m glad they are at least isolating the waste ash from the ocean. One micron, they say—but from how much trash? One micron lodged in a lung can do some serious damage. If it’s even one micron per pound, that is a potential national health crisis.

Step 1 should be to sort all the trash.

The highest and best use is reuse. Many trashed items can be repurposed or easily rehabbed. Wood can be used again as wood, cloth can be used again as cloth, etc. This uses no energy other than to clean and perhaps repair.

Next, remove all food and other organic waste for composting and/or anaerobic digestion to produce heat and energy.

Third, remove items for upcycling: turning existing products into new ones with minimal conversion and very little energy footprint. Often these are artsy-craftsy items like jewelry and household decor items, made from old books, vinyl records, CDs, bicycle parts, or whatever.

Fourth, collect paper, plastic, metal, cardboard, and glass for recycling. Even single-use plastic bags can be turned into other products, from reusable tote bags to decking lumber. Our small side porch is made of plastic lumber from recycled materials. It needs far less maintenance than the wooden decking we have on our big deck.

Fifth, contract with TerraCycle or a similar company (or license its technology) to reuse packaging such as Nas’s chip bag and all sorts of other things remaining in the trash. That company is amazing; they’ve even developed uses for recycled cigarette butts!

Sixth, institute lifecycle costing and circular disposal laws so that manufacturers of car batteries, chemicals, and other difficult-to-dispose-of waste have to take them back. They can deconstruct the batteries, recycle the individual materials, reformulate the chemicals into their original ingredients or into other harmless and reusable compounds…

Seventh, do whatever steps I left out and should have mentioned. I’m sure there are some.

NOW, after all that, and assuming it has passed rigorous literal and figurative environmental and social “sniff tests”, the remainder (I’ll guess somewhere between 2-5% of the original trash volume) can go to that fancy trash-to-energy plant.

I picked up Harrison’s book expecting a story of how charity: water—which I support every month with an ongoing donation—came to be, and how it’s been so successful. At the book’s final edit date (it was published in 2018), this organization had taken on 28,000 water projects that brought clean water to 8.5 million people in 27 countries. (As of July 26, 2019, the website updates these numbers to 38,113 and 9,628,786, respectively.) 

And it talked about all those things. But what it’s really about is Harrison’s journey from financially successful but morally dissolute night club event promoter and major partier to someone motivated by a much higher cause: improving millions of lives by providing clean, safe, and nearby drinking water to millions of villagers who hadn’t had this before. His storytelling is rooted in his Christianity, and his moral awakening.

He spends rather more time wallowing in the dissolute part than I would; my first note is on page 65 and I only have two notes for the first 110 pages. And yet, despite how long it takes to get to the substance of how charity: water has made a huge difference in people’s lives, I very much recommend the book because…

• Who and what motivated him to change his life is quite gripping
• The stories he shares about the impact of water in places that lacked it may very well change the way you look at not just water but other resources
• The charity he founded, ran on the thinnest of shoestrings, and built into a world-class nonprofit is simply an amazing combination of passion skill, and luck
• He’s not shy about sharing the struggles: the challenges of fundraising, the heartbreaks when a well project fails or a child can’t be saved, even the positive lessons he took from a legal battle that almost brought down the organization
• As an entrepreneur with a natural gift for marketing, he has many lessons to share about how to reach an audience even with a difficult subject, how to get people to open their hearts, how to keep them motivated, and much more

How can you profit by putting the VALUE in your VALUES? Shel Horowitz shows how to MONETIZE your organization’s commitment to fixing problems like hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change. Shel consults individually and in groups, gives presentations, and writes books and articles including Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (endorsed by Jack Canfield, Seth Godin and others).