Plastic bags were ban last year in California. You now pay 10c for a bag and its a sturdy brown paper bag. The coffee cups are recyclable (no polystyrene anywhere around here) and the take away cutlery are usually strong biodegradable utensils. Still - a medium coffee cup is huge, I hate to think what the large is like, let alone a medium or large soda.
I'm about to hit the Big Apple and find out though, however new legislation, adopted on Thursday by the city's Board of Health has put new restrictions on supersized colas. The Board hope this will lead to changes in the way New Yorkers eat and drink. Bloomberg I see hopes to ban Styrofoam food packaging from stores and restaurants before his term runs out.
Back on Bikes. In Santa Cruz it's 5c an hour to lock your bike away in safety. 
Out of interest, the UK has a massive campaign currently on to make cycling safer. A good article to read is Cyclists live longer – refer to Graph http://www.cyclingpromotion.com.au/images/stories/factsheets/Issue_Sheet_2_cyclists_live_longer.pdf
Also Copenhagen has saved millions of pounds through people cycling rather than driving. A bike can save you money – read paragraph ‘Improving the health of your bottom line”
http://www.cyclingpromotion.com.au/images/stories/factsheets/BFA_Fct_Sht_SaveMoney_Web.pdf
New York also has taken the focus away from cars in Manhattan and onto pedestrians and cyclist. Stay tuned on how that is tracking, how they are achieving this and what the benefits are.
The newspapers are much smaller and easier to manage over here, they are long and skinny and lighter paper is used. San Jose, has one of the oldest newspapers in the state - The San Jose Mercury which was founded in 1851. The Mercury News was named one of the five best-designed newspapers in the world by the Society for News Design for work done in 2001.
But did you know, on average, a year's worth of newspaper (one paper per day) produces 550 pounds (250 kilograms) of waste paper. An average New York Times Sunday edition produces 8 million pounds (3.6 million kilograms) of waste paper.
It will be interesting to see how long hard copy papers will be around. I am witnessing the paperless office. City workers and council officials have extremely clean desks in Silicon Valley and Santa Cruz. Only the Ipad is taken to council meetings and city staff know everything they want is stored on their computer. Palo Alto had a 'bin' week, where they asked all employees to get rid of all unnecessary folders and papers and to rethink the way they work e.g. stop printing.
Again, good to see so many initiatives for improving people's health. I spent yesterday talking to people in the Biggest Loser house. None of them wanted to be big. Ironically the ways they got big were things like:
ReplyDelete1. One had a job delivering portable toilets. He was on the road in his truck four to five hours a day. The only places he could stop were takeaways which sold pasties, pies, dim sims, and other crap.
2. That same lovely lovely man had a daughter who was born very sick. He had to spend months at a time with his family at the hospital which they lived some distance from. At the hospital healthy meals were $13 each. All they could afford to eat were Maccas.
3. Two of the boys had been keen sportsmen. One was bullied for being slightly overweight and so stopped playing sport and began comfort eating which made him very overweight which made him bullied more and so the vicious circle got worse. The other was playing so brilliantly he was put under the care of a coach who, again ironically, made him hate the game so he stopped playing and started playing computer games instead.
4. One of the mums was like most mums - never made any time for herself to exercise or even think. Once all she had to think about was exercise and nutrition and herself, it's been relatively easy.
With cycling, Warringah needs to tell the story - as Sophie has also pointed out. For instance it's made a cycle track from Manly to Warringah Mall. I can get from my home in North Manly to the Mall quicker by bike than I can by car. There are numerous benefits too - cost, pollution, health, safety, parking.
When I tell people I cycled, they are amazed but it is no distance and completely flat. The council could have a short video following a driver and a cyclist and showing how fast, easy, convenient and stress free cycling is.
Hi Soph
ReplyDeleteThanks for all the good ideas from Santa Cruz. I wonder if people use reusable coffee containers as opposed to oneoff (even if they can be recycled).
Cheers
Dave B
Thanks for your comments you two. Interesting thoughts and ideas Bev.
ReplyDeleteDave, unfortunately I didn't see many (in fact any) people taking their own cups in to be refilled.
And unfortunately I have become a Starbuck's regular in NYC as they have free Wi-Fi. It seems everyone drinks coffee in NYC and the number of cups marching out the door is just too huge to think about - so I think Bloomberg has some work to do in getting people to think about reusing coffee containers. At least he is trying to ban Styrofoam from stores and restaurants before his term finishes.