Campaign urges less trashy life.

Byline: SCOTT MABEN The Register-Guard

Short Mountain is growing taller - and faster than it needs to.

Fed by a steady stream of garbage trucks, Lane County's landfill near Goshen swells by nearly 5,000 tons of trash every week. That's enough to fill Autzen Stadium seven times each year.

And even though county residents are among the best recyclers in the state, as much as 70 percent of what goes into the 26-year-old landfill could be recycled or reused, according to the county's waste management division.

"You name the material and it's here, in large quantities," said Pete Chism, the county's waste reduction specialist.

A peak into the dumping pit at Short Mountain confirms it. A large bulldozer Wednesday rolled across heaps of paper, cardboard, aluminum - even piles of leaves that normally are taken to commercial composters.

"When you watch it come out of the backs of these trailers and trucks, there's a lot of recyclables coming in here," said Lenard Gosda, the landfill site supervisor.

The county continues to reinforce recycling, but it's not enough, Chism said.

"Our focus now must shift from recycling to generating less waste to begin with. That means less garbage and less recycling," he said. "The goal is waste reduction."

To that end, the county today will kick off a new initiative to encourage residents to cut back on unnecessary waste, from excessive product packaging to unwanted catalogs to cheap products that need to be replaced routinely.

The "Less is Best" campaign, funded in part by a $32,000 state grant, first will target waste that is generated during the winter holidays. Through radio advertisements and other promotions, the county will offer consumers alternatives to filling their trash cans with excessive packaging, decorations and greeting cards.

Tips include giving gifts in reusable containers, using old maps or posters for wrapping paper, offering friends and family members homemade crafts or desserts, and replacing material gifts with services such as tickets to a sporting event.

"If you do give material items, look for ones with little or no packaging or ones with recycled content," Chism said.

The county even plans to collect used holiday greeting cards, beginning Dec. 28, for St. Jude's Ranch for Children, a national program for abused, abandoned and neglected youths. The children turn the used cards into new ones, which they sell. Next year, the county will focus on how people can reduce waste in their daily routines and decrease the amount of junk mail they receive.

"If we could get each person to reduce their waste by just 1 percent, or 30 pounds per year, it would keep 5,000 tons of material out of our landfill and slow the speed at which Short Mountain is growing," Chism said.

The county estimates that the landfill has room for 30 more years of refuse, but accommodating that growth is expensive. Phase 4, now under development, will cost $5 million to prepare and will be full after about six years, landfill engineer Ken Cole said.

The longer the county can put off developing new landfill phases, the less it will cost residents to dump their trash there.

Waste reduction also saves energy and natural resources that go into producing paper, glass and metal from virgin sources, Chism noted. "If we are successful, our landfill will last longer, we will save energy, natural resources and prevent pollution, and people will realize that less really is best," he said.

Residents, businesses and public agencies in the county have earned a reputation for taking recycling to heart. In 2000, the county led the state with a recycling recovery rate of 52 percent. Residents that year kept 216,500 tons of material out of the landfill. That was 1,337 pounds per person.

The state Department of Environmental Quality is still crunching the numbers for 2001, and county officials hope to see the recovery rate edging upward.

Despite the good record, the waste stream is growing because the population and the amount of material consumed per person are increasing, Chism said. The combined weight of trash and recyclables averaged 2,928 pounds per resident in 2000, up from 2,552 pounds in 1992, he said.

In an effort to stem the rising tide of "material consumption," the county's campaign will shed light on ways people can change their habits without sacrificing modern comforts.

Examples include buying in bulk, spending a little more for longer-lasting products, taking canvass grocery bags on shopping trips to avoid the "paper or plastic" choice, and using a travel mug for coffee runs rather than the paper cups provided by vendors.

"The disposable mentality we have is because of convenience," Chism said. "By adjusting your behavior and pattern, after a while you don't even recognize something's different. It becomes very easy."

REDUCING HOLIDAY WASTE

The county's "Less is Best" campaign begins by targeting holiday waste.

To reduce waste:

Pick reusuable products to replace disposable ones

Look for items that don't need batteries

Select well-made gifts that last a long time

Shop at antique shops and second-hand stores 

Find goods in recyclable packaging and made of recycled content

Avoid over-packaged items

Make your own gift wrap, and reuse bows and ribbon

Reuse gift wrap and packaging materials for sending gifts

Use recycled or homemade greeting cards

Buy a live tree for Christmas, then plant it or donate it to a park

Instead of buying new products:

Make a gift from wood, fabric or paper scraps

Volunteer or give cash donations in the name of a loved one

Refinish a piece of furniture or rebind a tattered book

Write a family history

Repair a fence or car

Teach someone to play a musical instrument

- Lane County Waste Management

CAPTION(S):

Lane County's new "Less is Best" campaign is aimed at encouraging residents to limit what they throw in the trash, all of which ends up at the Short Mountain Landfill south of Eugene. The campaign includes tips for being less wasteful consumers. BRIAN DAVIES / The Register-Guard REDUCING HOLIDAY WASTE The county's "Less is Best" campaign begins by targeting holiday waste. To reduce waste: Pick reusuable products to replace disposable ones Look for items that don't need batteries Select well-made gifts that last a long time Shop at antique shops and second-hand stores Find goods in recyclable packaging and made of recycled content Avoid over-packaged items Make your own gift wrap, and reuse bows and ribbon Reuse gift wrap and packaging materials for sending gifts Use recycled or homemade greeting cards Buy a live tree for Christmas, then plant it or donate it to a park Instead of buying new products: Make a gift from wood, fabric or paper scraps Volunteer or give cash donations in the name of a loved one Refinish a piece of furniture or rebind a tattered book Write a family history Repair a fence or car Teach someone to play a musical instrument - Lane County Waste Management