EDITORIAL

In Business, March-April, Vol. 29, No. 2, p. 2

WHAT ONCE WAS POSSIBLE IS NOW LIKELY

ACROSS the national and international scene, we are seeing evidence of rapid changes taking place in the world of green development. What once was viewed as hopeful wishes are now turning into solid change - in product development, in sustainable agriculture, in green building and residuals reuse. Perhaps most importantly, is the awareness that “green is for real!” Our wish list has become reality.
We see the changes happening big-time in the pages of BioCycle - our other sister publication that focuses on advancing composting, organics recycling and renewable energy through using materials thought of as waste. As we wrote almost 40 years ago in a book called Garbage As You Like It, original thinking and bold action are vital to protect our nation from becoming more of a dump than it already is. We wanted to make it clear that we had the technical know-how to treat our wastes without polluting the environment. We needed to use the money allocated to burning and burying - in many cases less money - to make a potential resource of those wastes. And, over the last four decades, that goal is being achieved. We wrote in 1969:
“You as an individual citizen produce the garbage and wastes - more than a ton a year; you pay for whatever method the people you elect decide to use to treat it. You should know what happens to the garbage that leaves your home. You might as well face up to it. Simply trying to forget about your trash just doesn't work. It comes back to haunt you - in the air you breathe, in the water you drink, in the mess you see.”
Have we made progress? The answer obviously is yes - as we look at the knowledge base, equipment and systems in place today to convert residuals into renewable resources. Slowly but surely, we are replacing the unsustainable with the sustainable. Looking through the hundreds of past issues of In Business and BioCycle, our books, conference proceedings and our memories, it hit us that we started setting the pace to sustainability so many years ago, that we need to stop thinking we are the “future” and enjoy the realization that we are the “now.” It remains our challenge to work with corporate executives, environmental groups, policy makers, legislators and educators to create the incentives and regulations to put solutions developed over these many years into action.
Together, we are not only setting the pace, we are helping to set the standard. We have come to the point that what once was possible has now become the likely, predictable course of action. And that action is covered with genuine green! -- Jerome Goldstein

Copyright 2007, The JG Press, Inc.