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Clueless
in NOrth Andover
Ted Tripp
No, this is not about the school
departments fantasy budget. There will be plenty of
good stuff to report on that subject next
month in The Valley Patriot.
This month we want to revisit trash. Early last month the
North Andover Solid Waste Committee/Recycling Committee
enclosed a copy of its latest flyer in the local daily
paper.
And there on the lower front page of the newsletter was
the story, Does North Andover Need PAYT? The
time for Pay As You Throw may be now.
The only expression I could muster at the time was
Disbelief!!
It has been just six months since the town resoundingly
defeated a trash fee/tax at a raucous town meeting of
3000 people and now proponents of the fee think the town
should revisit the issue. (Here I will pause as you catch
your breath or finish laughing.)
The article starts by saying we still have a trash
generation problem although North Andover
significantly reduced its trash amounts this past year.
It goes on to say that PAYT addresses the issue of
fairness. By this the committee means that we all pay the
same for trash removal whether we throw out ten bags of
trash a week or only one. This, the committee seems to
conclude, is unfair.
I can actually agree with the committee on this latter
point. But if this applies to trash, should it not also
apply to other services? For example, we all pay the same
taxes to support the education of our children. Yet I
have no children in the schools and never had
so shouldnt I be exempt from paying this
portion of my tax bill? After all, for fairness, we
should expect only those households with children in the
schools to pay for the school budget. And, of course, the
more kids you have, the more you pay.
That would be great for me. It would reduce my tax bill
by thousands of dollars. Sounds fair from my perspective.
The article goes on to say Unfortunately, PAYT was
introduced to the taxpayers under very strained
circumstances. Ill say! The school spending
zealots tried to ramrod an unpopular tax/fee through town
meeting and the people rose up and said No way!
Isnt it the ultimate hypocrisy that the same people
who think that its OK for property taxes to pay for the
operation of our schools also think that its not OK
for those property taxes to pay for trash removal?
Now lets talk about Global Warming. What, you say,
does this have to do with trash?
There is another incredible article in the recycling
flyer that implies if North Andover residents dont
a) reuse items that have already been produced, b)
recycle paper products and c) compost yard and food
wastes, that this will contribute to Global Warming. And
the article goes on to say this may lead to more
frequent and intense storms, flooding of low-lying areas,
changes in regional weather patterns, and an increase in
infectious diseases carried by pests such as mosquitoes.
Does anybody really believe that by not putting a few
more cans or newspapers into your recycle bin every week,
you will cause malaria to spread into North Andover? This
is what the Global Warming alarmists want you to believe.
They want to scare you into doing what they
want you to do. It is all about control and their quest
for absolute control.
Now, dont get me wrong, I am all for recycling.
Before I moved to North Andover, I lived in Wilmington
for 20 years. There I was a member of the recycling
committee and volunteered many Saturdays to help run the
recycling drop-off center. To me it made sense to recycle
items such as glass and newspapers and maybe some
plastics.
But recycling should be based on an economic benefit or
strategic national need. If it costs less to recycle a
product than make it new, then thats probably a
benefit. Also, if recycling some products reduces our
energy needs, then that would probably be a strategic
national benefit.
Many things dont make sense to recycle. We dont
recycle plastic foam or thumb tacks, for example, because
it costs too much to pick them up and would use far more
energy to collect and transport such items to a foam or
thumb tacks manufacturer than is required to make new
product.
So a good recycling policy should be based on common
sense, not some threat of Global Warming.
Too many do-gooders today treat Global Warming as a
religion and they do so because the science isnt
there to support many of the dire predictions. Beware of
those preaching such religious beliefs to the
masses. Step back for a minute and use a little common
sense to evaluate the world around you.
Remember, Al Gore is no scientist but he did
attend divinity school at Vanderbilt.
Ted Tripp is an International Consultant in high-tech
manufacturing methods. He has BS and MS degrees in
Chemical Engineering from MIT. You can reach him at tripp@gis.net.
*Send your questions comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com
The February 2007
Edition of the Valley Patriot
The Valley Patriot is a Monthly
Publication.
All Contents (C) 2007, Valley Patriot, Inc.
We publish 10,000 newspapers and distribute in Andover,
North Andover,
Methuen, Haverhill, Chelmsford, Georgetown, Groveland,
Boxford, Amesbury,
Lawrence, Dracut, Tewksbury, Hampton & Salisbury
Beach, and Lowell.
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