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Home Resource Center In the News Home Greenbelt Alliance in the News |
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Greenbelt Alliance In the News
February 22, 2007 Urban planning talk Tuesday at Acterra Transit-oriented development on the agenda Susan HongImagine farmlands disappearing, traffic on U.S. Highway 101 getting worse, increased water contamination and more air pollution. This is the world that Michele Beasley of Greenbelt Alliance envisions unless the San Mateo and Santa Clara counties act to protect open space and create more livable communities. "We're going to see about 1.7 million (more people in the Bay Area) by 2030, 25 years from now," Beasley said. "How do we accommodate this growth while also providing more livable communities, while also protecting open farms and open spaces?" Beasley and Don Weden, retired principal planner for Santa Clara County, will present ideas for urban planning on Feb. 27 from 7 to 9 p.m. at Acterra, a local environmental nonprofit organization. Beasley proposes transit-oriented development, the practice of building more condominiums and townhouses in areas close to transit, shopping centers and parks so people can walk and bike to live instead of drive. Palo Alto planners have already been working on incorporating such development into the city's zoning rules. The urban-planning talk is the first in a series of Acterra events, which also include "Waste Reduction & Recycling," a presentation by Gary Liss, a "zero waste" business consultant, and Maija McDonald of Environmental Planning Consultants. They will define "zero waste" and talk about what happens to trash, after it leaves homes and businesses. "Zero waste is the only program out there in the world of climate change and sustainability that has set the bar at this 90 percent level," Gary Liss said, referring to the goal of eliminating, recycling, reusing or composting 90 percent of waste. Liss will talk about how joint U.S.-Japanese ventures like the Fremont company Nummi have saved $20 million from implementing a zero-waste plan. Nummi and the Japanese company Ricoh eliminated use of cardboard boxes in favor of plastic reusable shipping boxes. "They are saying, 'Don't ship us stuff in cardboard containers, ship to us in returnable shipping containers,'" Liss said. McDonald said a perfectly good carrot that Palo Altans decide to throw away will end up in a landfill in San Jose and stay there mummified. That carrot will eventually emit methane, a greenhouse gas. She will talk about ways individuals can help reduce waste in their own homes. On May 22, Davis Baltz of Commonweal/Health Care Without Harm will talk about the dangers of chemicals found in clothes, furniture, bedding and upholstery in a talk titled, "Toxic Chemicals and Pesticides: Biomonitoring the Chemicals in Your Body." "Chemicals are virtually unregulated in the United States," Baltz said. "People assume they are tested for safety before approved." But in fact there's very little scrutiny, he said. It's only after a problem happens and damage has been done that people do anything about it, he said. There are 800,000 industrial chemicals registered for use in the United States, a 100 percent increase in the number of available chemicals since World War II, Baltz said. And these chemicals are contaminating our bodies, he said. Breast milk is contaminated with flame retardants called "PBDs", polybrominated diphenyl ethers, Baltz said. PBDs are a close chemical cousin to PCB, polychlorinated biphenyls, a class of chemicals banned in the 1970s for its carcinogens, he said. The United States is making millions of pounds of PBDs, he said. "We need to have a 'Marshall Plan' to move away from chemicals and use them selectively and make sure they are safe before using, he said. Baltz will talk more about what the community can do with this knowledge. The cost is $5 for the general public and free to members of Acterra. The organization is located at 3921 E. Bayshore Road, Palo Alto. For information, contact Debbie Mytels at 650-962-9876 x302, debbiem@acterra.org or Shirley Ingalls at 650-903-3419. ### |
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