Pete Grogan: Recycling: Governor can push state ahead in waste disposal
The Colorado State Legislature has passed extended producer responsibility legislation in the interest of improving Colorado's track record on waste minimization and recycling.
There has been minimal state leadership on this issue in its history. Colorado has an extremely poor record of waste recovery, especially given the highly educated population of the state. The sponsors of this legislation are to be congratulated for their courage and interest in delivering proven results to the population of Colorado.
Improving waste recovery in the state has a variety of benefits including decreasing energy usage in the disposal process of landfilling materials, decreasing the environmental impact of landfilling and lessening the production of methane gas via landfilling and thereby having a positive impact on the climate. And there are all the benefits of treating these materials as resources, not waste, and the new employment opportunities.
Colorado has been asleep at the wheel on waste minimization, and now it's potentially a new day.
The governor can sign the bill into law and join 70 other nations and two U.S. states in developing a monumental solution that will benefit all areas of the state including rural areas.
Or he can yield to the pressure from industry groups that are encouraging him to veto the legislation. Groups that have had 50 years to bring forth solutions but have not done so.
Therefore, Colorado is now at a major fork in the road. The one road keeps Colorado in the prehistoric stages of primarily waste disposal in landfills — as in hiding garbage in the ground, just like cavepersons did.
Or with one quick signature Gov. Jared Polis can transform Colorado to a place where waste materials will be a resource used to benefit everyone within the state.
Here's hoping leadership wins the day.
Pete Grogan
co-founder of Eco-Cycle
DesMoines, Washington
Frankie Ryder: Food drive: Community Food Share thanks generous residents
This spring, Community Food Share set an ambitious goal to raise 70,000 meals for our Hunger Hurts the Whole Community Fund & Food Drive.
For the third year in a row, the event was entirely virtual. Despite not being able to greet shoppers at the grocery store as we usually would, our neighbors rose to the challenge and successfully helped us reach our goal!
In a show of thanks, I want to share an excerpt from a card recently sent to Community Food Share. It reads: "Dear Boulder Food Pantry Team, I can't thank you enough! I recently experienced an injury that cut my working hours from 50 a week to just 10. Lately, eating healthy has been breaking the bank. Today was my first visit to a mobile pantry. I wanted to cry — I was so grateful!"
This note is from just one of many people who come to Community Food Share and our partner agencies to get the fresh, healthy groceries they deserve. Whether you donated to this fund and food drive or supported any of Community Food Share's other initiatives, I hope that you know the life-changing impact of your gift.
I want to give special thanks to our event sponsors — the Daily Camera, Longmont Times-Call, Colorado Hometown Weekly and King Soopers — for their instrumental role in making this event possible.
From all of us at Community Food Share, thank you for supporting our neighbors when they need it the most.
Frankie Ryder
Community Food Share marketing and communications manager
Louisville
Rivvy Neshama: Texas school shooting: Fight Heart of Darkness with universal gun background checks
Now and then, a line from a book I read in college comes back to me, eons later. I won't remember much else, but the line will stand out.
Wednesday I woke in sorrow about the latest mass shooting in a school. I thought of the children, their innocence, and then I remembered this line from Joseph Conrad's book, "Heart of Darkness": "The horror! The horror!"
Later I read what Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said with painful passion: "There's 50 senators right now who refuse to vote on HR 8, which is a background check rule that the House passed a couple of years ago. It's been sitting there for two years … Do you realize that 90 percent of Americans, regardless of political party, want background checks — universal background checks? We are being held hostage by 50 senators in Washington who refuse to even put it to a vote, despite what we, the American people, want.
"They won't vote on it because they want to hold onto their own power."
It's time for we the people, all 90% of us, to use our power.
Perhaps we could start with this: Let each of us, no matter what party or politicians we support, vow to refuse to vote for any person who will not support HR 8 and future common sense bills, and vow to let our preferred candidates know through writing or phoning that this is our intent.
I hope you will join me in this effort and share the idea as widely as you can.
I looked up that line in "Heart of Darkness," and it reads more fully as this: "He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision — he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath — 'The horror! The horror! '"
Rivvy Neshama
Boulder
Richard Bixby: Plane crash: Did pilot perform one last act of heroism?
Referring to "Two killed in plane crash" in the Monday edition, it states "The plane narrowly missed hitting a residence in the subdivision, instead crashing into a landscaped area outside a home."
I wonder if the pilot performed one last act of heroism, preventing a possible loss of life by intentionally avoiding a home and crashing into an empty field.
I think Broomfield, the FAA or some one should present the pilot's family with an award.
Richard Bixby
Boulder
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